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Net Neutrality Rules Officially End Today as Democrats 'Less Than 50 Votes' From Advancing Petition in the House
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sigh. While the anti-Neutrality propaganda has been relentless, I don't understand how people can think these things. "Less government regulation"?? All that Net Neutrality did was say that corporations can't throttle, censor, and prioritize the internet. This had nothing to do with "innovation". Yes, Net Neutrality has only been law for a few years. The ISPs had been afraid to throttle and censor before that because they were unsure of their exposure and there was financial downside to getting slapped with lawsuits, fines, etc. Now, with Net Neutrality officially "cancelled", it's open season on democracy and party time for the plutocracy. Of course, the corporations were already violating Net Neutrality (see "Binge On"), but the current administration, for obvious reasons, had no interest in enforcing. Finally, as to your comment that we can always "go back to the way things are" (i.e. reinstate Net Neutrality), what makes you think that? You think that laws are some reflection of popular opinion or support? Laws only reflect whatever the corporations choose to pay congressmen to pass. Over 80% of Americans supported Net Neutrality, across all party lines, yet it was repealed because AT&T, Verizon, etc. paid to have it repealed. Sorry, but "voters" don't have a choice in the American system (and this goes for Republican or "Democrat" administrations, there is no difference).
Demand for internet content continues to increase (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, FB video, Twitter video, Cable on-demand, etc.), increasing demand for bandwidth. Demand for internet content quality continues to increase (HD, 4K, 8K, Dolby Atmos, HTML5, 3D and VR gaming, etc.), also increasing demand for bandwidth. Bandwidth is not free nor unlimited. This demand requires investment in more infrastructure and newer technologies. ISPs must regularly invest in improvements to meet growing demands.
Net neutrality forces ISPs to fund improvements by raising access prices for everyone to pay for the excessive use of others, whether you are an excessive user or not. The irony is that lower income households are less likely to be high demand users or to be able to afford high-bandwidth content but will likely see their access costs go up proportionate to everyone else, thus jeopardizing their access to the internet when weighted against other necessities like shelter, food, and heat. Higher income households will likely never have to worry about the cost to access the internet but will have the luxury to bitch if charged more for the quality of their high-demand entertainment content that they must binge on a regular basis.
The low income households don’t have to worry about throttling, they’re just glad the kids can research the papers for school over the most affordable but slowest connection available.
So goes the new opioid of the masses. Binge on good citizens, binge on.
Net neutrality forces ISPs to fund improvements by raising access prices for everyone to pay for the excessive use of others, whether you are an excessive user or not. The irony is that lower income households are less likely to be high demand users or to be able to afford high-bandwidth content but will likely see their access costs go up proportionate to everyone else, thus jeopardizing their access to the internet when weighted against other necessities like shelter, food, and heat. Higher income households will likely never have to worry about the cost to access the internet but will have the luxury to bitch if charged more for the quality of their high-demand entertainment content that they must binge on a regular basis.
The low income households don’t have to worry about throttling, they’re just glad the kids can research the papers for school over the most affordable but slowest connection available.
So goes the new opioid of the masses. Binge on good citizens, binge on.
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We’ve always had net neutrality before under Title I, actually... that was overturned in a Supreme Court case, and things got real bad, real quick. Title II just restored it to that state.
But ya know, facts.
Not it didn't. ISPs were never restricted from charging more money for bandwidth use or higher speeds. If an ISP wanted to sell you a service that was capped at 10GB/mo.(or whatever limit they choose), they could do that. If an ISP wants to sell you a service that was also capped at 10Mbps, they could do that too. What they could not do is selectively limit where the bits came from or went to, or limit the speed of those bits.
My service allows for 1024GB per month. If I want to use more than that, I can pay $50/mo. more for unlimited usage. Conversely, they also offer a reduced rate for a lower usage service. This plan has been in effect for years (i.e. before the end of "net neutrality").
The debate has been framed as a consumer price issue fairly effectively (though wrongly). Netflix is charged by ISPs for it's data use and Netflix's customers are also charged for their data use. What ISPs want is a 3rd revenue stream by creating a bridge, where one is not needed, and then selectively charging a toll to cross that bridge. Meanwhile, they are also directly competing with the companies being charged the toll.
So, your premise is wrong. Therefore, your argument fails. Still, the appeal to class divisions was a nice touch.
We can argue about the semantics of net neutrality all we want. Bottom line is the ISP's are now free to do what they want. What they choose to do remains to be seen. Politics aside, time will tell, and then will have more fodder and can resume pointing fingers at each other's political views. Waste of time. Glad to see this thread was cleaned up.
Not that hard to future out. Republicans want less corporate regulation and restrictions, and Democrats wants rules and regulations in place to product the consumer. Each has it's merits, but I for one do not trust corporations to do the right thing.
Not that hard to future out. Republicans want less corporate regulation and restrictions, and Democrats wants rules and regulations in place to product the consumer. Each has it's merits, but I for one do not trust corporations to do the right thing.
I'm sorry you're so easily fooled but you're 100% wrong. Literally.
Net Neutrality is a consumer protection that keeps the internet free and open for everyone.
Seriously how can you not understand this?
uh, yeah another vote for that.The occasional excesses of the robber baron mentality is historically why deregulation has been needed in areas considered critical to the nation's ability to function well. Considering how critical the internet is to a free exchange of information -- and by free I mean here both timely and choiceful-- I don't see how its regulation to some extent is anything but inevitable even in a democratic but largely pro-business environment.
The occasional excesses of the robber baron mentality is historically why deregulation has been needed in areas considered critical to the nation's ability to function well. Considering how critical the internet is to a free exchange of information -- and by free I mean here both timely and choiceful-- I don't see how its regulation to some extent is anything but inevitable even in a democratic but largely pro-business environment.
It seems neither side can ever find a balance. It always has to be one extreme or the other. Too much or too little. Nothing in between.
I really am amazed at how foolish the public perception has become.
All the objectives of Net Neutrality is clearly stated in the 2015 bill (I provided the link earlier here), and the bill clearly states how certain rules are in place because AT&T did this, and others are in place because Verizon did that, with clear case references.
Where are the anti-NN hysteria people getting their information - talk shows and faux news? Still, after they were fooled in 2016?
The search bar in every browser leads to the actual info as stated by the FCC.
Since Pai overturned the NN, cable companies have raised miscellaneous fees in the tens and twenties, and package prices have also gone up. Plus they don't allow self install if you are new or move to a new location - they insist on sending out a technician to hook up the existing active modem and/or cable box onto an existing live connection. And charge an installation fee (more than $75) - but the kicker is that the appointment is minimum three days away. No broadband to save your life until then.
Scam by outlying cellular companies are increasing with bait-and-switch.
Yes, these started in September 2017, not yesterday.
Bleeding us dry is the norm already.
Netflix and other streaming services are not sending the signal to our homes for free, they pay more than the proportionate fee for their bandwidth use as everybody else, because their service is commercial. The higher fees that every ISP is demanding and every citizen thinks they should pay is over and above the enormous fee these companies pay the ISPs. Basically, an extortion by monopoly broadband providers.
The speed does not matter until the ISPs put a throttle filter in the line to whine for more money. Same with priority, a non-factor unless there are line problems. This is already a common practice with our modems, our speed is cut down to the subscribed number of Mbps, while the modem could be a DOCSIS 3.1 gigabit system.
We the consumer own the ISP lines.
Here is the link again, it is a lot to read:
https://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2015/db0312/FCC-15-24A1.pdf
Nicer ambience in this thread now, good.
Not that I'm in the habit of quoting Bill Maher - but he recently anecdotally told a story of how he needed to replace his garage door motor. Evidently in California you have to have this approved by the State, even though it is his garage and his property. The point he made is that not all regulations are equal. Some are ridiculous, some are necessary. Yet the anti-regulation crowd will point to the former to discount the latter.
I’d struggle to find a time in the last 200+ years where the “balance” in governance was ever even remotely tilted towards consumer protection, rather when the workers of the country finally start to stir like they’d change something the capitalist class gives them a bone. Example: the New Deal. FDR explicitly told the titans of industry that he was the only thing keeping the masses from going French Revolution 2.0 on their asses and they better give an inch to preserve the basic structure of American capitalism.
False. Net neutrality has nothing to do with choices for ISPs. If fact without net neutrality will make it harder for a start up ISP.
I live in Ca. and I have never heard of such a thing.
His city may require a permit. I doubt it, but it definitely is not a Ca. thing.
Just because you got an ISP under Net Neutrality doesn't mean government isn't the barrier to market entry. The Soviets could buy toilet paper, they just had to wait in a line out the door to do it on the day the store had toilet paper.
I cited the telecom deregulation. Maybe you are too young to know what I'm referring to. Before you were born, we all had one phone company and long distance was prohibitively expensive. We had one phone style to choose from. After the deregulation, telecom exploded with choice – companies entered the market and now we have hundreds of phones to choose from and long distance calls are included with your monthly fee.
Today, the biggest barrier for startups is compliance (complying with government regulation). The big corporations lobby Congress to create more regulations for this very reason. The big guys can afford the army of lawyers to handle compliance, but the little guy can't.
Again, ISP capital spending went down for the first time after Obama's Net Neutrality.
Because *I* pay my ISP for the amount of speed and data *I* feel is good for me. Netflix pays it's provider for the speed and data they need.
My ISP should not be charging me more depending on the services I use. It is that simple. NN is simply that everybody pays for the access, and then every bit is treated the same.
Cool, and you still fail to account for the fact that not every ISP’s spending went down and that correlation does not necessarily mean causation. Why did it go down? Just saying that an event happened after x event happened doesn’t mean that x was the cause of the event.
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This is not going to be like a Y2K bug. As companies gradually instate new policies and plans, we will all see the squeeze. The real question is if competition will be allowed to flourish enough to offset those new policies.[/QUOTE]
Competition will not flourish with excessive government regulation.
This is not going to be like a Y2K bug. As companies gradually instate new policies and plans, we will all see the squeeze. The real question is if competition will be allowed to flourish enough to offset those new policies.[/QUOTE]
Competition will not flourish with excessive government regulation.