FCC Expected to Repeal Net Neutrality Rules in Vote Next Month

[KdParker]

We already have that. What is your point? I still feel like Net Neutrality was fixing something not really broken. It was always "this could happen" or "that might happen."

I really think that is just part of the problem and it is broken since we (USA) pay a high cost for internet access compared to the rest of the work.

The other problem is that companies can pay the ISPs fees to stream content at a higher rate, forcing others to also pay that fee in order to compete.
If you are a smaller company you could literally be pushed out of the market with a seemingly inferior product because of slower load times.

 

[wozmatic]

Remember, on election day, to vote for your party and not the candidate! It's a must-win game! Us versus them, all the time, every time. Freedom!

The system needs to change.

 

[Z400Racer37]

Please share the data prices you were getting from Mama Bell. Or the last unleaded receipt from Standard Oil.

Question: If Nationalization of someones property makes things cheaper, does that give you the right to steal it through the government? Is theft legitimized if it's efficient?

 

[nwcs]

Well, moving beyond the fear, uncertainty, and doubt spreading like wildfire here...

Two thoughts easily occur:

1) It’s likely there will be another president in a few years. If a candidate campaigns on this platform (among others) then no company would implement such pricing tiers now to only have to undo it all in fairly short order.

2) Generally things don’t change on a dime and while the FCC may allow it, it doesn’t follow that companies will do it. Especially given backdoor politics, money, and other shenanigans that never see the light of public scrutiny.

Bonus thought:

3) In the end it doesn’t matter very much as the prices are going up one way or another. It will either be in connection fees, streaming fees, package fees, or some other thing. When one is disallowed another rises up to take the place of it. The smart consumers will be the ones who can say “no thanks” to things they really can live without and if enough do it things change.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

True, now what is the cause of the lack of competition? Is it the case that the people in the area want only a choice between one fast provider, and one slow one? Notice: all 4 main cell carriers (albeit with varying levels of coverage) offer similar speeds on their networks. What stops this kind of service from being provided through ISPs? Is there possible another rights violating law somewhere, which prohibits competition from moving forward?

Cellular service is a different animal. I can build a number of towers and cover tons of customers. It takes far more money to build out a traditional ISP to the home because you need many more permits, you have to run miles of fiber into neighborhoods, and you need to run the service into the home. With cellular service, there is really no cost to add 1 or 100 new people. You still have the same tower providing that service. With a home ISP, you have to run cable into the neighborhood and home of each of those new customers and that adds a real cost that can take months or years just to break even.

With home internet service, there are far higher costs involved. So to make it worth the investment to run fiber and cable into a neighborhood, they have to know they can acquire a good percentage of the customers in that area. But if those customers are already covered by someone else, it's a lot less likely they'll be able to acquire the number of people required to justify the investment. We've seen this with Google Fiber. They've stopped building out their offering because they can't get enough people to switch away from the competing service to theirs. If you can't get most people to switch, then you can't break even, and the investment just isn't worth it (and if you could get them to switch then the competition is going to go out of business and you're back to having just 1 provider in the area).

 

[NoNothing]

I really think that is just part of the problem and it is broken since we (USA) pay a high cost for internet access compared to the rest of the work.

The other problem is that companies can pay the ISPs fees to stream content at a higher rate, forcing others to also pay that fee in order to compete.
If you are a smaller company you could literally be pushed out of the market with a seemingly inferior product because of slower load times.

What company was pushed out of the market because they were unable to compete due to slow downloads. Not hypotheticals but specifics.

 

[skywalkerr69]

Check this dude's CV.

Pai was Verizon general counsel, promoted stepwise by the Republican-led Senate and Trump, the twitter nitwit, to his present FCC position, with the directive to dismantle all customer-protections.

Here are some of his latest gems, from Wikipedia:

1. Pai wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal in 2014 criticizing a proposed FCC study of the news-gathering practices of media organizations.[20][21]
2. In another 2014 letter, Pai criticized Netflix, writing that their Open Connect caching tools effectively secure fast lanes for its traffic.[22]
3. In October 2014, Pai wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post criticizing a government-funded research project named "Truthy" at Indiana University which was studying the spread of "false and misleading ideas, hate speech and subversive propaganda" online.[23]

Pai questioned the value of the project, writing "should taxpayer money be used to monitor your speech and evaluate your 'partisanship'?" Truthy researchers defended the project, writing "we do not monitor individual people. The tweets we analyze are public and accessible by anyone."[24] Indiana University issued a press release which said "the Truthy project is a basic computing research project designed to provide analytical insight into the ways in which information is spread across social media networks such as Twitter."[25] U.S. House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith sent a letter to the National Science Foundation announcing a review of the grant.[26]

4. As chairman, Pai scrapped a proposal to open the cable box market to tech companies such as Google and Amazon. The cable-box "rental" is the leading money maker, monthly "money grab" of cable providers at the detriment of all cable subscribers, who live under a city-protected duo-poly.​

This sample, alone, disqualifies the man for any government, policy-making post.
But here we are.

​

Lol what about Wheeler? He was a lobbyist for telecom. People forget about him because he was Obama’s guy.

 

[Z400Racer37]

Can someone please explain how this vote is actually going through?

Because people, and their leaders can't think, and sometimes they get lucky.

 

[KdParker]

This actually might bring internet to people who only can afford internet essentials right now. Which is something like 5mbps. I’m all for a free internet but I don’t think these changes would be as damaging as people think they will be.

Also, remember the market decides. If you don’t want it, don’t pay for it.

That would make sense if there was somewhere else to get internet access. Most neighborhoods only have one choice for high speed internet access.

 

[itsmilo]

This guy got „corporations little bitch“ written all over

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

No it hasn't. All this vote basically does is roll back the classification of common carrier. The US only had NN for a few months.

Again, show me a single plan int he US allowing only specific sites being accessed. Just a single plan. Not one in the EU but the US. Just one plan.

T-Mobile did with their video service. Consumer response was harsh.

 

[KPOM]

This proposal restores FTC oversight of wireless companies. Also, the DOJ is blocking the proposed AT&T / Time-Warner deal, so it isn’t all light touch.
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T-Mobile did with their video service. Consumer response was harsh.

And if consumer response is harsh again they will drop it.

 

[e-coli]

I'm a Trump supporter through and through, but this is ridiculous. I'm very much against this.

If only somebody would have seen this coming...

Psst...EVERYBODY saw this coming, except you Trumpians.

 

[KPOM]

What company was pushed out of the market because they were unable to compete due to slow downloads. Not hypotheticals but specifics.

We can’t know who didn’t enter the market.

 

[skywalkerr69]

That would make sense if there was somewhere else to get internet access. Most neighborhoods only have one choice for high speed internet access.

I agree. That’s because it’s a mix of regulation and incentives. It’s extremely expensive to build a new network to reach a new customer base. That’s why Fios stopped and google slowed way down. Who knows? Maybe if this passes, one positive will be new infrastructure. Also, even if it does it’ll be challenged immediately in federal court. So at least there will be more time.

 

[KPOM]

I'm a Trump supporter through and through, but this is ridiculous. I'm very much against this.

Remember the FTC regains regulatory authority under this proposal. Obama exempted them from it.

 

[maelstromr]

Question: If Nationalization of someones property makes things cheaper, does that give you the right to steal it through the government? Is theft legitimized if it's efficient?

Question: If the underlying premise of your point is exposed for being woefully inadequate to a modern problem, is it logically effective to try and change the subject to another non sequitur?

PS - No one has nationalized anything in the US and if you don't like living under a government, please feel free to relocate to the Antarctic and start your own Free State. Things always turn out well for those.

 

[thasan]

Again. Show me a single internet package with that option. Remember NN never really went into effect. Show me just a single plan allowing only FaceBook, Twitter and Huffington Post.

errrr... actually there are lot of mobile phone packages in asian countries which provide access to ONLY facebook or some local music streaming services. Slightly different that this case but they do exist.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

And if consumer response is harsh again they will drop it.

That's only if no other companies make the move too. The only reason T-Mobile changed was because if they didn't customers could go elsewhere to someone who didn't limit them. But if net neutrality goes away and everyone makes those changes which impact consumers negatively, backlash does nothing because you can't go elsewhere.

 

[NomadicTy]

No we don't. We have services packages based on speed and in some places on data use, but not on actual content or websites (the data cap is neutral in regard to what websites use the data). But this is the situation in Portugal, a country with no net neutrality:

I do not ever want to see something like this in the U.S. In other words, what websites you can access depend on your plan and they are grouped into packages like cable TV. Additionally, a provider could theoretically slow down a competitor's streaming service and speed up their own. This is especially problematic in rural areas where they may only be one ISP to choose from.

I see Vodafone PT does not have plans like that (see link below). They have really fast home internet, too. 100 Mbps up, 100 Mbps down for 29 Euros...

https://www.vodafone.pt/main/Partic...arios/internet-no-pc-ou-tablet-pos-pagos.html

 

[AppleInLVX]

I feel badly for you folks, and I fear for the rest of North America getting ideas that somehow this is acceptable. I truly hope whoever's next, assuming your chosen representative actually doesn't destroy the world, will be able to heal some of this incessant abuse of good people in the name of corporate greed.

 

[e-coli]

This proposal restores FTC oversight of wireless companies. Also, the DOJ is blocking the proposed AT&T / Time-Warner deal, so it isn’t all light touch.
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And if consumer response is harsh again they will drop it.

You can't possibly be this misinformed...are you? The FTC is the least litigious department of any oversight arm of the government. They are toothless.

And the merger block has everything to do with trying to shut down CNN. It has nothing to do with the consumer issues or business merits related to the deal.

 

[KPOM]

might be a good time to consider if you want to continue to support him, now that you see actions and not just words..

At the same time he is also blocking the AT&T / Time Warner merger, which probably has the potential to do more harm than removing net neutrality rules.

 

[mmm1345]

in a few yrs not only will we have to pay $10 each for 50 different streaming services, but then we’ll have to pay extra internet costs to access those specific streaming services, otherwise they’ll get throttled. Then you’ll have content providers pulling their services off your internet. Sounds a LOT like cable, only far WORSE.

 

[NomadicTy]

Until they classify VPN providers in the highest tier...

Then they'd lose their business clients.