Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
FCC Votes in Favor of Net Neutrality Rules, Classifies Broadband Service as a Utility
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
And you could leave them and use someone else....
I mean you're saying it's OK if the government does it instead? The thing about corporations is there are MORE THAN ONE of them and so if you don't like one, you can pick another one. Why not just let the government offer ALTERNATE ISP services that they regulate and leave the Internet as a whole alone? That way you can decide whether you prefer your Internet "regulated" by the government or a private company and choose the best option of the two (of course I said the whole thing about Obama Care but the Republicans don't want anything non-profit to compete with their little price-fixing trust setup.
The problem with total government regulation is that I KNOW the government will eventually interfere with more than just net neutrality and use this as a convenient excuse to do it. "Regulated like a utility" says it all. The FCC "regulated" broadcast television and they're still having a fit about a "wardrobe malfunction" all these years later. What will they say about violent online content? You see it's not you or me or the general public that decides these things when they become regulated. They are decided by APPOINTED (not elected) officials that decide FOR you what is right, wrong, appropriate, obscene, etc.
If they had a law that ONLY made it a requirement (no FCC involved) to be Net Neutral, that would be FINE. But their "solution" is to use the FCC and that is where the problem lies. No one in their right mind would want the FCC to control things.
Have you noticed that there are no traditional "Looney Tunes" style cartoons on Saturday mornings on network television anymore? There's a REASON for that and it's called regulation. Some arse decided that cartoon "violence" like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck supposedly "portray" is EVIL and so it is not allowed. Everything has to be "edutainment" now. No wonder Generation Z doesn't watch TV. Who the bleep would WANT to watch that boring crap? This didn't happen overnight! It took a few decades, but it happened! And it's because it's the PUBLIC AIRWAVES. Now it's the PUBLIC INTERNET! SAME THING.
Three to four generations grew up watching Looney Tunes and they wanted to drive when they hit 16 and wanted to leave their parents house and go out on their own. Now kids are coddled to death with "Barney" style crap and don't want to drive, don't want to get a job and don't want to move out and why would they? We treat them like freaking 2-year old babies. I've seen it first hand. My 23 year old half brother not only still lives at my dad's house, but doesn't have a drivers license, doesn't and has NEVER had a job and my dad just lets him sit in his room and play video games all day. Well hell, that's the lifestyle! Maybe I should move back in too! Why would I want to work 8-10 hours a day and own a house when I can be a Millennial style MOOCH the rest of my life?
Next they'll say 30% of all Internet content must be edutainment, all foul language and violent video games will be banned from the Internet and it will ALL be for the betterment of society.... Just give them a few years and see what happens.
No, YOU are the one that doesn't get it. Mark has it right. This is NOT about "Net Neutrality". It's about FCC REGULATION in the name of net neutrality! There's a BIG DIFFERENCE between the two. It will start with net neutrality, but by allowing the FCC to regulate the Internet, it can and it WILL eventually spiral into more areas of regulation than just Net Neutrality. I imagine a new federal tax on Internet service will be on of the first things that will be implemented ("We can pay down the debt!" But it won't be paid down. Congress doesn't know how to balance a budget so it can NEVER be paid down). It will eventually land in the hands of an administration with "family values" that sees the FCC as their guardian of right and wrong and will push them to ban content based on "obscene" behavior. Oddly, I think the right-wing is more likely to play this card in the future once they get over Obama "destroying the world" crap. But one way or another, it WILL move beyond Net Neutrality and all of you who think this is a good idea will learn that a LAW for net neutrality would have been the way to solve it, not encouraging the FCC to just take over (no vote by you, me or anyone else).
It sounds like you were upset when things were the other way around. Did that make you a whiner? The problem with government in general is that it has been corrupted and represents extremist views on both sides. Some are in the hands of corporations and others want big government to solve everything. Those of us in the MIDDLE that want REASONABLE GOVERNMENT regulations so corporations can't run amok bribing the hell out of the right wing to get their way on everything and control the government then have to deal with the far left that wants the government to tell you when it's safe to breathe. NEITHER IS ANY GOOD, IMO. You need enough regulation and controls and reasonable laws to make sure greedy scumbags don't control the country and send all the jobs overseas willy-nilly and you need enough freedom so that some appointed committee some where can't decide what your can and cannot watch on television because their "values" differ with your own.
Last edited:
So you live in one of the hotspots of controversy. Ms. Blackburn wants to get a law passed through congress to restore Tennessee's state right to urinate on the area. The commercial providers do not want to serve the area, it is too unprofitable, but the municipal broadband service is not constrained by profitability. The commercial providers want no competition in the areas that they do not want to serve, so they are saying "screw you" to the people that live there.
In the end, telcom wants no competition. The FCC ruling, as it stands, is for free market principles, not against them. I fail to see any way to oppose this set of regulations that does not make one an anti-free-market big-telcom advocate. The BS is flying fast and with fury.
----------
Prey tell how? I have basically two options here: the phone company or spotty 3G. The second option is not viable for my usage patterns. I have no choice, tuck that BS line back into you briefcase and move along.
Any chance of you finding the law or regulation that backs up that assertion?
Because without some form of proof, that sounds like a freshly pulled-from-one's-behind wild rumor.
But I'm open to evidence. The question is, can you provide any?
Here you go:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/09/30/saturday-morning-cartoons-are-no-more/
It's a combination of the FCC requiring "edutainment" for three hours a day (and tv stations aren't going to do that during prime hours so guess where the cuts will be?) and waning ratings. You don't need a verbatim "total ban" by the FCC to kill something. You just need it to be unreasonable enough that the stations do it for them in order to meet these "requirements".
And you could leave them and use someone else....
I mean you're saying it's OK if the government does it instead? The thing about corporations is there are MORE THAN ONE of them and so if you don't like one, you can pick another one. Why not just let the government offer ALTERNATE ISP services that they regulate and leave the Internet as a whole alone? That way you can decide whether you prefer your Internet "regulated" by the government or a private company and choose the best option of the two (of course I said the whole thing about Obama Care but the Republicans don't want anything non-profit to compete with their little price-fixing trust setup.
The problem with total government regulation is that I KNOW the government will eventually interfere with more than just net neutrality and use this as a convenient excuse to do it. "Regulated like a utility" says it all. The FCC "regulated" broadcast television and they're still having a fit about a "wardrobe malfunction" all these years later. What will they say about violent online content? You see it's not you or me or the general public that decides these things when they become regulated. They are decided by APPOINTED (not elected) officials that decide FOR you what is right, wrong, appropriate, obscene, etc.
If they had a law that ONLY made it a requirement (no FCC involved) to be Net Neutral, that would be FINE. But their "solution" is to use the FCC and that is where the problem lies. No one in their right mind would want the FCC to control things.
Have you noticed that there are no traditional "Looney Tunes" style cartoons on Saturday mornings on network television anymore? There's a REASON for that and it's called regulation. Some arse decided that cartoon "violence" like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck supposedly "portray" is EVIL and so it is not allowed. Everything has to be "edutainment" now. No wonder Generation Z doesn't watch TV. Who the bleep would WANT to watch that boring crap? This didn't happen overnight! It took a few decades, but it happened! And it's because it's the PUBLIC AIRWAVES. Now it's the PUBLIC INTERNET! SAME THING.
Three to four generations grew up watching Looney Tunes and they wanted to drive when they hit 16 and wanted to leave their parents house and go out on their own. Now kids are coddled to death with "Barney" style crap and don't want to drive, don't want to get a job and don't want to move out and why would they? We treat them like freaking 2-year old babies. I've seen it first hand. My 23 year old half brother not only still lives at my dad's house, but doesn't have a drivers license, doesn't and has NEVER had a job and my dad just lets him sit in his room and play video games all day. Well hell, that's the lifestyle! Maybe I should move back in too! Why would I want to work 8-10 hours a day and own a house when I can be a Millennial style MOOCH the rest of my life?
Next they'll say 30% of all Internet content must be edutainment, all foul language and violent video games will be banned from the Internet and it will ALL be for the betterment of society.... Just give them a few years and see what happens.
No, YOU are the one that doesn't get it. Mark has it right. This is NOT about "Net Neutrality". It's about FCC REGULATION in the name of net neutrality! There's a BIG DIFFERENCE between the two. It will start with net neutrality, but by allowing the FCC to regulate the Internet, it can and it WILL eventually spiral into more areas of regulation than just Net Neutrality. I imagine a new federal tax on Internet service will be on of the first things that will be implemented ("We can pay down the debt!" But it won't be paid down. Congress doesn't know how to balance a budget so it can NEVER be paid down). It will eventually land in the hands of an administration with "family values" that sees the FCC as their guardian of right and wrong and will push them to ban content based on "obscene" behavior. Oddly, I think the right-wing is more likely to play this card in the future once they get over Obama "destroying the world" crap. But one way or another, it WILL move beyond Net Neutrality and all of you who think this is a good idea will learn that a LAW for net neutrality would have been the way to solve it, not encouraging the FCC to just take over (no vote by you, me or anyone else).
I think you are a bit confused by what the Federal Communications Commission does. Their job, since their founding more than 80 years ago, is to regulate all forms of telecommunication in the United States. Now yes, one of their jobs is to censor broadcast television, and radio for that matter, however you will notice that does NOT extend to phone companies, which they also regulate (eg. there is no ban on sex lines).
And as for the recent death of Saturday morning cartoons, that has nothing to do with the FCC. 24 hour kids networks like Disney slowly killed the demand for that time slot.
Last edited:
...3 hours a week.
You missed the real reason just one line later: "The rule also limited kid-centered advertising during childrens TV programs, which made cartoons less profitable for networks."
There are less shows like HE-Man (specifically created TO sell toys to children), the smurfs, scooby-doo, etc because the entire BUSINESS MODEL of saturday morning cartoons was direct advertising to children...
I think you read the article, and missed the point entirely...the $$$ model changed.
See the article I linked above. The FCC's actions are directly responsible as the networks chose that time to implement their REQUIRED three hours of "edutainment" policy instead of traditional cartoons. Now you get crap shows on Saturday and informercials all day Sunday (the "other" side of the coin they choose NOT to regulate. Why should I have nothing to watch but paid advertisements all day long? How is THAT helpful to "my" public airwaves? Like I said, both extremes suck).
I think I didn't re-read the entire article as I read it long ago, but I still don't see a difference. It's still the FCC that made that ruling and thus ruined Saturday morning cartoons. It may or may not be your opinion that Scooby-Doo was just trying to sell kids Scooby-Doo toys (I never had any, but I watched the cartoon), but so what? I had transformer toys. They were pretty sweet in their day (I still have them, in fact). The fact the Transformers franchise has absolutely KILLED at the box office DESPITE being made like crap shows that I wasn't alone in finding the show fun. I don't find "edutainment" 3D Model cartoons "fun" for anyone. How long was the cartoon morning block on Saturdays? From 7-8 AM to about 11 AM. That's 3-4 hours at most. What was the requirement? 3 hours. Combine the two and it's OBVIOUS that the FCC is 100% responsible for the death of Saturday morning cartoons because THEY decided that kids shouldn't be targeted for advertising (there goes half the cereals out there too) and that kids should "learn something" instead. All I've learned is that they've ruined an aspect of my own childhood I revere until this day (along with arcades designed to separate me from my quarter collection! OMG!) and sugary cereals that tasted awesome and replaced it with Crap, crap and vegetables. Yay FCC!
Last edited:
It's ridiculous. Tennessee isn't exactly a shining example of much at the moment, but we have a city that's been held up as a model for the future of the internet. Everything in Chattanooga is routed and monitored through the fiber lines. From the surveillance cameras, to the power grid, to the sewer lines, it's all bolstered by what EPB has done. We've had officials from all over the world come and tour the city to see what's been done there.
It's something that could be expanded throughout the state, and people have been clamoring for it for awhile now. But unfortunately, thanks to Marsha Blackburn, it's stuck to the 30 mile radius that makes up the metro area and suburbs of Chattanooga. EPB is legally bound to only service that area because, well, the only reason I can figure is because Comcast was a big contributor to her campaign funds. She pushed against municipal internet, throwing out all the usual catchphrases such as socialism, bootstraps, states rights, blah blah blah, and so on, and got her way. I don't think any other city can even build a muni internet setup in the state anymore.
So here we have a situation where the apparent will of the people is faster internet, being denied by a politican who's using the will of the people and states rights issues as a means to keep it from happening.
You got one op-ed from the Washington Post...can you provide anything from a source that doesn't just use one sentence to stake its claim?
Some journalism on the business model, climate, revenues, demographics, etc. perhaps?
So how many pages of evidence do you want before its good enough to make a point or do you want to troll?
It is what it is. If you want the evidence, YOU go look for it. I've seen it already. It's NOT hard to find. Try "FCC" and "Saturday Morning Cartoons" on Google. It will give you pages and pages. Here, I'll even type it into Google for you since apparently it's too much fracking work for you to even TRY. https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=fcc+saturday+morning+cartoons
Last edited:
Hey. Thanks for providing the source!
Following through the links takes you to the FCC site, where they point out that it was Congress that passed the Children’s Television Act (CTA) which became public law in 1990.
The bill ...
Requires the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to prescribe standards for commercial television broadcast licensees that limit the duration of advertising in programs for children to a specified number of minutes per hour. Instructs the FCC to initiate appropriate rulemaking proceedings within 30 days of this Act's enactment and to promulgate the final standards within 180 days of enactment. Authorizes modifications of the limitations after January 1, 1993, in accordance with the public interest.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d101:HR01677
So it would seem as if your anger toward the FCC is misplaced, as they are only following the requirements of the law as directed by Congress.
Is the Internet a phone company?
Did you hear that the NSA has been monitoring your phone for many years now without your knowledge? Actually, I knew about it over a decade ago, but couldn't prove it (my brother actually applied for an NSA job in the '90s and it was more than obvious the house phone was tapped during that period and then I read about a program to electronically monitor phone calls for key words and start recording if it picked one up. It was a "rumor" but it turned out it was TRUE. Where's Snowden now? Why isn't he a hero for exposing the evil government? Oh yeah, it's because the more or less same corrupt government is still in control and they would rather call him a terrorist or spy than a patriot since he made them look bad.
Is it more easily compared to say TV/Radio? How about HAM Radio where the public can communicate back? Were those unregulated? Again, this isn't about what just happened, but what is now technically possible by having the FCC regulate it rather than a simple law on net neutrality. It's what happens when someone appoints, asks or otherwise pushes for laws without actually making laws. I may not be a Republican, but I don't like people just changing immigration laws without a law either. The public should have its input too before someone just decides to "take over" the Internet.
I'll give you that one that it's more than just the FCC alone, but it doesn't change the fact the government getting involved in any abstract (i.e. non-limited, non-specific) way can lead to unintended controls. I understand the reason people want "Net Neutrality", but just telling the FCC to take over regulating it will not leave it to ONLY that one thing in the long run. In other words, it makes Congress' job that much easier to just stick a federal tax on the Internet and hide it in some "FCC Fee" like you get on your phone and a little less likely to draw the public ire for having a wide scale new internet tax (I mean who went up in arms when these "fees" started appearing on your cable and phone bills? Hell, do most people even look at the itemized fees?)
Last edited:
Okay. But you can work through your senator or representative to change the laws. If they become onerous and unbearable, then the people will have the recourse of petitioning the government or tossing out elected officials who don't respond to their needs.
Is the Internet a phone company?
Hmm, no...BUT, phone companies quite often are internet providers! And besides which, the FCC isn't talking about regulating the internet itself. They're talking about regulate internet providers!
And that has exactly what to do with ****?
If you're trying to say that regulation will lead to silencing voices of opposition, then please explain how conservative blowhards like Rush Limbaugh can broadcast their radio shows?
The FCC is not taking over the internet. They are regulating internet providers. Something that must be done in order to actually enforce net neutrality... or do you honestly believe companies will just support it because they're told to?
Last edited:
Right up until they tell the providers to block certain types of content in the interest of the internet. No different than the FDIC telling banks to cancel the bank accounts of law abiding business, just because of different political views, not law. And I could list another dozen just like this where laws are being broken for political reasons.
Competition would fix it just fine, there does not need to be any regulation. We already have a nanny state. And companies would support it just fine if we had competition and nobody bought their services. Or if more people bought services from ISPs with more neutral policies. It works and its cheaper. If they took the restrictions out for the last mile we would not need any new regulations.
cubans always been full of ****
as for my opinion on this FCC ruling, i'm cautiously optimistic. I really thought Tom Wheeler (being an ex cable exec) would cave but I'm presently surprised/impressed by his actions. Hopefully he keeps it up
They aren't going to start blocking websites. Just give it a rest. This misinformation is not helpful.
I agree with the last sentence. Removing the restrictions from the last mile infrastructure actually requires the same reclassification that the FCC passed yesterday. It's a shame they forfeited their authority to enforce the unbundling clauses for the time being. Note that unbundling restrictions are generally imposed by the local telecoms company and not by the local government. A regulation would be needed to forcefully open up the last mile connections unless you are some how depending on the goodwill of telecoms companies to suddenly have a change of heart and offer fair and open access to their networks for competitors.
Why are you against the FCC's decision? The only reason I can gather so far from your posts is because you think that the shadow of tyranny is just around the corner.
If they were going to do that, they would have done it when it was regulated under Title II between 2000 - 2005. But none of the complainers here about it said anything then, as they just went their merry way online. But only now, it is a problem.
So if the sky didn't fall then, what the bloody hell makes us think that the sky is going to fall now?
BL.
Again, the FCC regulates phone companies. Yet they don't block things like sex lines. They also regulate WiFi technology, any yet have never pushed for "content filters" in routers (what they did recently do was go after after hotels for trying to block personal Wi-Fi hotspots).
Competition is great when possible. The FCC and DOJ's decision to block the T-Mobile-AT&T merger has been a major boon for competition between wireless carriers. However the problem with broadband internet providers is that they control the lines. In order to enter the market, a competitor would have to run all new lines for themselves. And realize those lines are usually running underground, making it an extremely expensive proposition for developed areas.
Last edited:
Now you are making up BS, or repeating someone else's BS, or just not understanding stuff. Stop defecating on the thread.
Here's an excerpt from the festivities...
"Todays vote by a bitterly divided Federal Communications Commission that the Internet should be regulated as a public utility is the culmination of a decade-long battle by the Left. Using money from George Soros and liberal foundations that totaled at least $196 million, radical activists finally succeeded in ramming through net neutrality, or the idea that all data should be transmitted equally over the Internet.*
The final push involved unprecedented political pressure exerted by the Obama White House on FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, head of an ostensibly independent regulatory body."
Sounds like a fun time was had by all
That's pretty optmistic considering they just had the ruling. The truth is no one knows what they're going to do down the road. The scary thing about government regulation of communication is that it's the freaking government, the same one BOUGHT AND PAID FOR BY SPECIAL INTERESTS. Don't kid yourself. You live in an Oligarchy, not a democracy. The Supreme Court ruling for unlimited funding to fix elections KILLED what was left of our democracy. Corporations can be bought (stock) by foreign governments and they now have permission to spend unlimited money to push their agendas. How ANYONE could "trust" a government that has let down its people by taking bribes and ruling with bias and partisan BS in the courts is beyond me. Just look at these jokers fighting over funding the DHS. It's pathetic. The country is run by spoiled rich kids.
I don't see a single solitary reason WHY they should have to enforce net neutrality. There is NO LAW governing any such concept. Obama is not Congress.
There are possible down sides to net neutrality as well. Why shouldn't you be able to get faster access if you're willing to pay more money? All the examples I see talk about ISPs giving "fast lanes" to high paying businesses that want their content delivered at a faster higher priority. But it seems to me the concept of "net neutrality" could swing both ways. In other words, there are consumer-side TIERS as well and when a shared optical fiber line in a large neighborhood with lots of customers gets bogged down, how should it be handled? Should the cheap 1Mbps or 5Mbps accounts get full bandwidth at their already slow speeds while the people paying for 20-50Mbps get throttled down to 5Mbps instead? Should they both get throttled by a percentage? Obviously, a percentage on the high-end covers more bandwidth than the low-end (i.e. the very same reason Republicans want income tax breaks and sales tax increases since they take in far more than they spend on average). They sell high speed accounts on the basis of being able to game or watch streaming video. But if it gets throttled too much, it won't be usable and then the customers will ditch them since they are not going to be happy paying for something they aren't getting.
And that brings "tiers" in general into question. If you can't guarantee a higher speed tier, should you be able to offer tiers at all? Are having ANY tiers "fair" to poor people? Should we engage in Socialized/Communist style Internet where everyone gets the same slow speed as everyone else for ONE FIXED PRICE? Yeah, I wouldn't be a fan of that option. It would make online video and gaming impossible for anything more than still pics and checkers. But how is offering different speed tiers for consumers any different than for people hosting sites? One can easily argue that Netflix NEEDS more bandwidth to host video (given that is how its business works) than Amazon needs to load a web site that is based on fixed images and text input. Which one becomes more unusable first if it's dished out exactly the same regardless of content?
If I'm paying for 4K Netflix, but I can never get it because my entire neighborhood is playing Tux Racer on the Net using their $10 a month accounts, even though I'm paying $80 a month to get 50Mbps access, but end up getting throttled during prime hours to 5Mbps due to Tux Racer legions all sharing the same fiber line in my area, am I going to keep paying $80 a month plus $12 to Netflix. No, I'm not. I'm going to take my business elsewhere, except there's nowhere else to go since they all have to give equal preference to Tux Racer regardless of how much more I pay. Or maybe I can't even pay more and I'm stuck with that same slow account since it'd be unfair and unequal if I'm allowed to buy faster Internet than my neighbor that can't afford it.