Because Obama was required to appoint a Republican. The reason he's now the chair is because of Trump and the conservatives who voted for him.
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Apple Urges FCC Not to Roll Back Ban on Internet 'Fast Lanes' in Push for Net Neutrality
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Because Obama was required to appoint a Republican. The reason he's now the chair is because of Trump and the conservatives who voted for him.
I'm one of those people that thinks COMCAST/NBC should be declared a utility since they have a virtual monopoly in my community (can't get satellite or VERIZON FIOS). Since the FCC let Comcast and VERIZON collude in an agreement that should be illegal, there will never ever be FIOS here and VERIZON has stopped offering DSL too at the same time. VERIZON says it's a technological reason. REALLY? That is laughable and completely sales related to their deal with Comcast since my house phone still works and had DSL before.
Since I run a blog, I also know that Comcast/NBC is trying to force the FCC to make rulings against companies supporting ATSC 3.0 and free HDTV over the air. While this might be considered ancient technology to some snobs here. ATSC 3.0 actually has the ability to to put TV on your iPhone other phone through IPTV. Comcast desperately wants to STOP THIS! Comcast has also forced the NBC Network in the US out of certain markets for over the air reception, the biggest being Boston. This needs to be stopped.
Since I run a blog, I also know that Comcast/NBC is trying to force the FCC to make rulings against companies supporting ATSC 3.0 and free HDTV over the air. While this might be considered ancient technology to some snobs here. ATSC 3.0 actually has the ability to to put TV on your iPhone other phone through IPTV. Comcast desperately wants to STOP THIS! Comcast has also forced the NBC Network in the US out of certain markets for over the air reception, the biggest being Boston. This needs to be stopped.
Yes and no, what we trying to stop is every ISP out there trying to gouge customers every time a new thing hits the Internet.
Example:
ISP: Your super fast, top tier(expensive), unlimited(not really) service is only 39.00 a month! Do you also want Facebook to load faster, speed up uploading/posting and be even more secure? That will be an extra 11.95 a month for our "X-ccelerator Social Media Package™". That gives you "accelerated" access to Facebook, Reddit, Myspace and many other popular Social Media sites.
You: But I only use Facebook and what about twitter?
ISP: Sorry we bundle our packages, we would like to do that but our system doesn't allow us to only sign you up for one site. Twitter is in our "Ch
t Package™" and that is only 9.95 a month for super fast, secure chatting with your friends and family and that includes Twitter, ICQ and Google Chat(text only).Think this sounds crazy? The cable companies already do this with Cable TV Channels and LOTS of ISPs out there are cable companies. And just remember....
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You know what would go a long way to promoting a healthier broadband environment? Competition. I live in city of about 45,000, and close to 100,000 in the metro area. I have access to one broadband provider, and that's commonplace in my city (and others). Total monopoly, for a variety of reasons. If I had options, I'd have instantly better internet, pricing or service, or all three.
So how do we make that happen?
So how do we make that happen?
Why is people paying for what they actually use wrong? Why should I subsidize someone else's usage of a service?
Actually, if your provider is also a CABLE company, then it's legal. Cable companies lobbied to have only one cable operator in a region versus several competing them. This prevents consumers from shopping around. Your choices now are cable, DSL and fiber, if the last is available in your area.
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Except that isn't happening here. You never subsidize anyone's plan unless your ISP offers some type of disabled or elderly package at a very reduced cost. Data transfer is also cheap as evident outside of North America. Every time an analog channel is switched to digital for cable or digital OTA transfer, more bandwidth opens up. ISPs that offer more bandwidth on their internet have more breathing room for television. In fact, most ISPs like Cox and Spectrum are working on lower but more visually appealing compression algorithms for their digital feeds.
A long time ago, the US government gave major subsidies and billions of dollars to all the ISPs operating in the US. This money was to for upgrading their networks. Right now, most of the US's speed should have been what typical Europeans pay for their high speed internet, which ranged from 50 Mbps to 500 Mbps, and costs less than $80 in most cases, sometimes as cheap as $20.
Net Neutrality has more to do with what kicked it off. When Comcast began throttling Netflix traffic despite Netflix paying them on the side and placing various content servers at ISP farm locations. Or when Verizon was caught throttling video quality for people who paid for higher video quality. Even TMO themselves, who advocate for NN, have violated NN.
Oh, and if you aren't aware, if you pay for any service or utility, you're essentially subsidizing it for everyone.
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I am already paying for what I am using. I am paying $70.00 a month for 75 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up and I am throttled down to almost nothing when I hit 50 Gigs each month.
If Youtube or Facebook or twitter wants to charge for access or features is one thing but why should I have to pay my ISP more just so they won't slow down my access to certain sites.
Yeah, I know it's legal. I've lived here for over 10 years, and I've dealt with a monopoly for 10 years. I'm well aware of the options available to me, well, the OPTION available to me at least. My point/question was broader. We need to open up markets like mine for more options. Rules need to change. Most of my city doesn't get DSL, fiber is nonexistent here, so we're stuck.
Well that has nothing to do with monopoly. Monopolies are illegal, as it's not illegal, it's not legally a monopoly. The only thing competition would bring is increased spending by the original ISP in the region through lowering of access and transmission fees or building out a better network. Albeit the latter is more 'future proof.'
It's inherently easier for government to bear down on ISPs and force them to expand. I know how it feels. I'm with Spectrum myself. We're almost always dead last in new upgrades. It's only been decent the last few years because the gov has had their crotch in a vice, to so speak. That and they're being sued by the state of NY.
In the last year I've seen better service and customer support than I've witnessed in about 20-22 years of having their service. We just got bumped to 300 Mbps a few months ago. Some demo areas are getting more than this. The ISP plans on making it to 600 Mbps for top tier customers by 2020-2022. A bucket of laughs. It took them 7 years to go from 100 Mbps to 300 Mbps in the first reach areas.
He was already in the FCC way before Obama was even in Office. It was Trump who ask him to rule the FCC as chairman.
In Sweden it usually works like this:
A company puts the fibre in, they do all the digging and setting up the equipment, but they do not offer any service.
If more than 60% in the area are interested in fibre, the work starts. It takes about a year, and then the fibre is installed in your home.
Then, you decide what service you want, you can choose from around 20 different ISPs and different plans ranging from DSL speeds all the way to 1GBit full duplex.
Prices go from around $25 for 10/100 all the way to $110 for IP-phone, 1GBit internet and a lot of TV-channels.
You can switch operator whenever you feel like it, you have the equipment, the ISPs just deliver what you want.
Right now, we're awaiting installation of the fibre and has to go with DSL, 8MBit. Where fibre is not available, there might be less options. Out here in the countryside, 10 miles from the closest city, we only have one operator offering DSL, but we have at least 4 different operators offering 4G internet if you'd rather have that.
If you live in a city, there's at least 3 or 4 operators offering DSL all the way up to 80MBit apart from cable companies and of course 4G and fibre in most cities.
The main thing is that it's one company that owns the network, with no interest in favoring one operator or the other. You as a customer choose your ISP to deliver the service you want at the price you like to pay. If people want "facebook fast lanes", I assume an operator is gonna offer that, but since you can have it all, why choose? If ISPs started to cripple internet like that, people would just switch to an operator who didn't. We have ISPs like Bahnhof who pride themselves in net neutrality.
A company puts the fibre in, they do all the digging and setting up the equipment, but they do not offer any service.
If more than 60% in the area are interested in fibre, the work starts. It takes about a year, and then the fibre is installed in your home.
Then, you decide what service you want, you can choose from around 20 different ISPs and different plans ranging from DSL speeds all the way to 1GBit full duplex.
Prices go from around $25 for 10/100 all the way to $110 for IP-phone, 1GBit internet and a lot of TV-channels.
You can switch operator whenever you feel like it, you have the equipment, the ISPs just deliver what you want.
Right now, we're awaiting installation of the fibre and has to go with DSL, 8MBit. Where fibre is not available, there might be less options. Out here in the countryside, 10 miles from the closest city, we only have one operator offering DSL, but we have at least 4 different operators offering 4G internet if you'd rather have that.
If you live in a city, there's at least 3 or 4 operators offering DSL all the way up to 80MBit apart from cable companies and of course 4G and fibre in most cities.
The main thing is that it's one company that owns the network, with no interest in favoring one operator or the other. You as a customer choose your ISP to deliver the service you want at the price you like to pay. If people want "facebook fast lanes", I assume an operator is gonna offer that, but since you can have it all, why choose? If ISPs started to cripple internet like that, people would just switch to an operator who didn't. We have ISPs like Bahnhof who pride themselves in net neutrality.
I think what you're trying to say is monopolies are often frowned upon unless sanctioned by the state (statutory monopolies). They do in fact exist. Perhaps most are regulated closely, but that doesn't change what they are.
If a company is good at what it does, that isn't their fault. Build a better product.
Apple would be all for it if they owned their own "lanes" in the Internet. But since they're not an ISP, they just want to avoid being billed for their iTunes traffic.
This is again one of those times when you get to see how necessary it is to ensure that there isn't a revolving door between regulatory agencies and the companies they're supposed to regulate. Occasionally you get people like Tom Wheeler who will bow down to what's in the interest of the general public, but for every Tom you get a stooge like Ajit Pai who will make some of the most anti-consumer decisions imaginable and justify those using the most mindbogglingly stupid excuses.
Only way his anarcho-capitalist/libertarian "It's never happened and if it will, the market will correct for it"-justification works is if ISPs didn't run a protection racket for content providers like Netflix, but that's exactly what happened and the way the market responded was by demanding that the public utility classification was implemented. In other words he's essentially implementing something that goes against the justification for what he's implementing.
You're not paying for anything except what you're using... What you're paying for is essentially the connection between you and the base infrastructure. A content provider like Netflix also pays for access to the base infrastructure, thou they tend to deal with the companies who run the base infrastructure directly rather than trough an ISP intermediary.
What the public utility classification of ISPs was intended for was to prevent ISPs from hampering their customers' access to the base infrastructure by slowing down traffic to certain content providers in order to favor their own competing services or use a threat of this as part of a protection racket against content providers.
Only way his anarcho-capitalist/libertarian "It's never happened and if it will, the market will correct for it"-justification works is if ISPs didn't run a protection racket for content providers like Netflix, but that's exactly what happened and the way the market responded was by demanding that the public utility classification was implemented. In other words he's essentially implementing something that goes against the justification for what he's implementing.
You're not paying for anything except what you're using... What you're paying for is essentially the connection between you and the base infrastructure. A content provider like Netflix also pays for access to the base infrastructure, thou they tend to deal with the companies who run the base infrastructure directly rather than trough an ISP intermediary.
What the public utility classification of ISPs was intended for was to prevent ISPs from hampering their customers' access to the base infrastructure by slowing down traffic to certain content providers in order to favor their own competing services or use a threat of this as part of a protection racket against content providers.
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- Declare internet a public utility by law and not just an FCC ruling, that way the FCC can't reverse the decision.
- Declare all utility poles PUBLIC property owned by the city that can be used for wiring utilities rent free. This avoid utility companies from claiming the poles as their own and preventing or slowing down access for newer companies like Google Fiber to come in.
- Mandate ALL traffic to be treated equally.
- Prohibit throttling and data caps unless they are specifically stated in the title of the internet plan name.
- Streamline approving new technologies
- Allow cities to setup their own city wide WiFi systems and other internet services
- Create an Internet User's Bill of Rights much like has been done for Air travel that has legal teeth for it to be enforced.
Paid fast lanes sounds awesome. Why would this be bad? If BestBuy wants to pay so I get to their webpage faster (or YouTube or Netflix or Amazon), whats the downside? It allows competition to grow and change the internet. Don't fear the future. See the opportunity. More money from companies might mean more competition to improve infrastructure and make the internet better overall.
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Their problem has little to do with your solutions. Smallish towns often grant monopolies to local companies for a variety of anticompetitive reasons. The problem is at the municipal level and hardly requires a 5000 pound hammer smashing on it nationally to fix.
Do you only have 1 bank, 1 airline, or 1 insurance company to choose from?
You cross a state line, the Federal Gov't can regulate it. It's called the commerce clause and it is one of the Federal powers enumerated in the Constitution.
What if the "fast lane" is actually the current lane and they slow other lanes down?
What if the next Uber, FaceBook, Instagram startup can't pay to play and goes out of business? That would stifle innovation.
That's not competition, it's about who has the most money wins.
Untampered internet traffic is what drives innovation.
Banks were not regulated before the Great Depression. They were slowly deregulated over the decades which finally resulted in the Great Recession.
Airlines were regulated up until 1978 with the passage of the Airline Deregulation Act. Most of the airlines that were in existence in 1978 are out of business and th employees lost their pensions.
Insurance companies are regulated at the state level. If they failed, who do you think would pick up the tab? Probably the same people who picked up the tab after the Savings & Loan crisis (another unregulated industry).
Please don't think I am for big government. I am not. But don't delude yourself into thinking there is a free market when there isn't