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its interesting that I have to charge my customers 15% of 64% yet when I look at other carrier bills like Nuvox (now Windstream) their $600/mo bill for various phone lines and phone packages; I only see a few dollars charged for USF. They are definitely cheating the system, perhaps through legal loopholes, perhaps not. Remember Adelphia? Just because the company is full of harvard business and harvard law graduates doesn't imply that they are using legal and extralegal loopholes. Sometimes they just cheat.

as far as the analogy that ATT is paying the 15%, thats not entirely accurate. Yes there might be a USF fee on my bill of $15, but I wouldnt go as far as to say if it were to go away that my ATT core charges would go up as a result. Its not coming out of their profits, they simply pass those costs on to the consumer. Ever see a Vonage bill? They lost a lawsuit to Verizon over a patent issued 20 yrs after the invention of DNS. Instead of that coming out of their profits, they charge the consumer an extra $5. However their website wont add this $5 to the price of their service when shopping around and comparing prices. I have seen first hand the way these carriers quote services. Its _amazing_ how a $400/mo PRI quote suddenly becomes $575 when you get your actual bill due to all the fees and taxes added. None of those were ever disclosed in a quote even thought they really could calculate a lot of this, at least to a rough estimate level. As long as Norlight or Paetec run around quoting $400 PRI, it will be unlikely that ATT raises their core pricing even at the demise of some of the taxes. There is still a race to present the smallest quoted price and then nickel and dime the shit out of people through hidden charges. I just dont see a big concern by them to eliminate the USF.

BTW those Federal Subscribe Line fee's go directly into their pockets and none of that is ever quoted in the price either.
http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedi...

The mainstream media is distracting you from what's really going on is Russia.

Anyhow, before condemning their new laws, have a look that what the FCC says.

Obscene Broadcasts Are Prohibited at All Times

Obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution and cannot be broadcast at any time. The Supreme Court has established that, to be obscene, material must meet a three-pronged test:

• An average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;
• The material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law; and
• The material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

http://www.fcc.gov/guides/obsc...

Why make me do all your reading for you? Just read here:
http://transition.fcc.gov/Bure...

Read section 6 on page 5.

As a renter, you can put up an antenna as long as you've got a point of exclusive access -- a window or balcony. If you're in a coffin somewhere, YMMV.

If your landlord tells you otherwise, they're lying.

http://www.fcc.gov/guides/over...

Why shouldn't I be allowed to block cell phone signals inside my home?

Let's ask the FCC!

http://transition.fcc.gov/eb/j...

"Signal jammers do not respect property lines, and federal law provides no exception that allows for the private or commercial use of a jammer."

What if I want to test my home security system that relies on cell towers?

Maybe you could "passively block it", exactly as you said a few lines up.

How in the world do you know that nobody nearby is making an emergency call, when you want to test your home security system? You're opening a can of worms, for no actual benefit.

I could think of plenty of other "fair use" reasons that buying and using a cell jammer should be legal.

Again, from the FCC:

"Jammers are more than just a nuisance; they pose an unacceptable risk to public safety by potentially preventing the transmission of emergency communications. Cell phone jammers do not distinguish between social or other cell phone conversations and an emergency call to a family member or a 9-1-1 emergency responder. Similarly, GPS and Wi-Fi jammers maliciously disrupt both routine and critical communications services. Jammers could also block more than just cell phone calls; these devices could disrupt important communications services that operate on adjacent frequencies, or worse, they could disrupt all communications within a broad frequency range."

To the best of my knowledge, they're not even illegal as defined by law

According to this "[f]ederal law prohibits the marketing, sale, or use of a transmitter (e.g., a jammer) designed to block, jam, or interfere with wireless communications". Section 203(b) prohibits making onefor use in the US too.

Section 302(b) of the Communications Act: “No person shall manufacture, import, sell, offer for sale, or ship devices or home electronic equipment and systems, or use devices, which fail to comply with regulations promulgated pursuant to this section.”

To see others the FCC has gone after, check out their website. Some of them are really interest; such as:

$49K for this guy: http://www.fcc.gov/document/48k-penalty-proposed-against-individual-cell-jammer-investigation-0

http://transition.fcc.gov/eb/Orders/2014/FCC-14-26A1.html Thiscompany got dinged 29K for operating a cell phone jammer in their warehouse.

To see others the FCC has gone after, check out their website. Some of them are really interest; such as:

$49K for this guy: http://www.fcc.gov/document/48k-penalty-proposed-against-individual-cell-jammer-investigation-0

http://transition.fcc.gov/eb/Orders/2014/FCC-14-26A1.html Thiscompany got dinged 29K for operating a cell phone jammer in their warehouse.

To see others the FCC has gone after, check out their website. Some of them are really interest; such as:

$49K for this guy: http://www.fcc.gov/document/48k-penalty-proposed-against-individual-cell-jammer-investigation-0

http://transition.fcc.gov/eb/Orders/2014/FCC-14-26A1.html Thiscompany got dinged 29K for operating a cell phone jammer in their warehouse.

"It isn't like you can look up license status through Google"

First, cellular frequency bands have mostly been "sold" to carriers, who are the only ones authorized to use those frequencies.

Second, the FCC itself, although not Google, certainly does have a license search (go to advanced if you want to search by frequency).

(and WTF is a "legislative amendment?" Cite something, if you can, instead of arguing by asking someone to prove a negative)

http://www.fcc.gov/guides/wire...

What we need is a two-way right-of transmission similar to OTARD.

My HOA wanted to give grief over satellite forms. I told them to pound sand because their rules were unreasonable (I had to sign an "agreement" when the HOA is not allowed to bind me in such a fashion but only use justifiable restrictions, in place PRIOR to my dish going up, not after the fact - OTARD is very specific about what types of rules might be allowed - the HOA never bothered me after hearing the magic word, "OTARD").

OTARD puts the burden on the entity wanting to stop reception. We need the same thing for hard wires and EM spectrum.

Of course, the FCC is not fighting to give citizens more power. They are fighting to get more power so we have to thank them for every bit we receive.

I'm sorry so much energy has been wasted on net neutrality and last mile nonsense. Yes, installation costs are expensive but a mile of fiberoptic cable costs $1000, it is the BS that is astronomical in price. Not to mention we pay to have our data sent to the NSA (directly or indirectly).

Phase II E911 rules require wireless service providers to provide more precise location information to PSAPs; specifically, the latitude and longitude of the caller. This information must be accurate to within 50 to 300 meters depending upon the type of location technology used.

From: http://www.fcc.gov/guides/wire...

Pretty amazing when you look at the number of comments.

The Open Internet topic had 45,193 comments. To put that in perspective, in the last 30 days, the five closest topics open for discussion had 95, 111, 113, 203, and 1678 comments (those two bigs ones were for ensuring compatibility with changes to 911 calling and the TWC-Comcast merger, respectively).

What a long way down to this.

TWENTY YEARS ago when a 1 megabit T1 cost $10,000 a month installed to the Caribbean -- with an equal measure of determination, deft grantsmanship and elbow grease we managed to bring Internet to the US Virgin Islands with the Virgin Islands Freenet. One day in September 1994 connectivity was available for ~40 cents a minute if you dialed long distance to the states, a couple thou a month for 56kbit or 10k for T1. The day after you could get an email address, access Usenet groups and browse the web with Lynx on 4 (and later as many as 12) local dialup lines.

So when the National Telecommunications Information Administration announced the first-ever roundtable discussion on the future of the global Internet we were there, and carried the newsgroups so our growing user base could follow and participate in this near real-time discussion. The issues were well presented, the discussion was formal and polite.

There does seem to be a general lack of civility and willingness to participate in process these days.

Now I do hold some measure of contempt for the Federal Government as a whole in its hubris over control of the Internet. The NSA is pushing net neutrality in its charter-be-damned initiative to listen to everyone, the president-du-jour tolerates 'Internet kill switch' dialogue throughout the Executive Branch as if martial law security checkpoints should be written into law, and let's not forget the peoples' hero Al Gore who lobbied for the government to hold our encryption keys in escrow. There is a large bullshit factor.

But attacking the FCC is sort of like going after park rangers. For better or worse (mostly better) it presided over the breakup of the Bells. It helped to ensure that even rural USA modernized its telecom to bring about modern access choices, the ones we take for granted today, to as much of the country as possible. And now they are charged with accepting comments on 'net neutrality' -- which will be as hard to adequately define in the modern context as it would be to discuss.

Now more than ever we need the real voices of people who aren't afraid to write their thoughts into multi-paragraph letters and opinions, no matter the medium, so say something about it. Just like my Freenet folks twenty years ago were eager to do. These folks are not wanting to know how to control, they are asking in what ways it may be best to regulate.

Control is what we generally try to avoid. Regulation that occurs with a majority of support that accomplishes useful goals -- such as the rural electrification and building of telecom in America -- is a necessary part of due process.

Time to try to recapture just a bit of the cultural restraint and intelligent determination of yesteryear, methinks.

If anyone cares to take the time write up a comment that may assist the FCC in evaluating or deal or possible concessions to be demanded of Comcast, the link to file those comments is here:
http://www.fcc.gov/mergers

Two types of comments can be productive. It can be helpful to file a well-written comment that includes.numbers, citations showing exactly how Comcast's position has been detrimental. It can also be very helpful to file a comment with a suggestion for a compromise that mitigates bad effects from allowing the deal to go through. For example, a comment posted three weeks ago suggesting that they be required to keep TWC's discount program could have been helpful. What doesn't do any good are "fuck Comcast" or "fuck the FCC" comments. Those only make it look like those opposing the acquisition don't have any articulable reason for doing so.

Yes, it's a bit like a homework assignment, to be effective you need to either cite your sources or present a new idea that the FCC hasn't already thought of. That involves more work than writing "fuck Comcast", but such is life in the real world, where grown-ups are making grown-up decisions.

http://stopthecap.com/2011/12/...

and the FCC knows about it:
http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/docum...

and even in Congress:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Several people replied asking for more information. It's really cool that we, as a community, are wanting to engage beyond just a slogan or headline.

My main point was that in my experience the FCC does read comments and incorporate good ideas into the next round of rules. So my post was more about the FCC process than about net neutrality per se. I'm no expert on wholesale bandwidth, though I've run a SMALL hosting company for many years. I'd have to do some research myself before I'd be able to file a useful comments. There's also more to learn than can fit in a reasonable Slashdot post. That said, I can point people in the right direction to learn more. There's a lot to learn, so it will take some time.

The current proposal is informed by the existing comments. Many of the people who bothered to submit a comment to the FCC are knowledgeable about the issue and the direction that the FCC has been thinking about going. You can read comments others have made on various FCC filings here:
http://www.fcc.gov/comments
Specifically this one is relevant:
http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comme...

Of course there are plenty of less informative comments, too, but there will be some gold in there.

Webostingtalk.com is a forum about web hosting where operators of a lot of small mom-and-pop internet companies discuss these things, as well as people involved with larger operations. There are threads on WHT discussing things in more detail, from people who actually know the difference between single-mode fiber and multimode fiber, and why one might be deployed rather than the other, and what kinds of government policies might influence such choices.

The core problem, as I understand it, is that the thousands of pages of regulations for common carriers are all designed for very mature industries, like POTS. The FCC will say "for the next 20 years, you must provide exactly this grade of service at this cost". It takes a for years to get a new grade of service or a new price approved, so you don't change things every year - more like every 10-20 years. That almost works for railroads and copper phone lines - nothing much has changed in the last 20 years (or 100 years) in the realm of copper phone service - some of the lines are about 100 years old. Do you want your ISP to be providing the same service they did in 1994? Obviously that wouldn't work.

A great example is Google fiber - that would have been all kinds of illegal under a common carrier regulatory regime. That service is GIGABIT - 50X as fast as the competition, for about the same cost as the old cable or DSL. That's exactly the kind of progress we want to promote, not outlaw.

Let's say you wrote a new set of common-carrier style regulations for internet, rather than inheriting most of the POTS bureaucracy. You may recall that for Google Fiber, Google looked for cities where the government would get out of the way and let them get the damn thing built, ASAP. If the FCC were managing ISPs the way they do phone companies, Google wouldn't (couldn't) have deployed quickly in Provo, they would have had to chose a city in Costa Rica or somewhere instead.

Again, I'm not an expert on the wholesale or retail internet market. I commented on the 2257 rules because I did have a useful combination of expertise in that area - and the FCC implemented the suggestions I and others made.

Several people replied asking for more information. It's really cool that we, as a community, are wanting to engage beyond just a slogan or headline.

My main point was that in my experience the FCC does read comments and incorporate good ideas into the next round of rules. So my post was more about the FCC process than about net neutrality per se. I'm no expert on wholesale bandwidth, though I've run a SMALL hosting company for many years. I'd have to do some research myself before I'd be able to file a useful comments. There's also more to learn than can fit in a reasonable Slashdot post. That said, I can point people in the right direction to learn more. There's a lot to learn, so it will take some time.

The current proposal is informed by the existing comments. Many of the people who bothered to submit a comment to the FCC are knowledgeable about the issue and the direction that the FCC has been thinking about going. You can read comments others have made on various FCC filings here:
http://www.fcc.gov/comments
Specifically this one is relevant:
http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comme...

Of course there are plenty of less informative comments, too, but there will be some gold in there.

Webostingtalk.com is a forum about web hosting where operators of a lot of small mom-and-pop internet companies discuss these things, as well as people involved with larger operations. There are threads on WHT discussing things in more detail, from people who actually know the difference between single-mode fiber and multimode fiber, and why one might be deployed rather than the other, and what kinds of government policies might influence such choices.

The core problem, as I understand it, is that the thousands of pages of regulations for common carriers are all designed for very mature industries, like POTS. The FCC will say "for the next 20 years, you must provide exactly this grade of service at this cost". It takes a for years to get a new grade of service or a new price approved, so you don't change things every year - more like every 10-20 years. That almost works for railroads and copper phone lines - nothing much has changed in the last 20 years (or 100 years) in the realm of copper phone service - some of the lines are about 100 years old. Do you want your ISP to be providing the same service they did in 1994? Obviously that wouldn't work.

A great example is Google fiber - that would have been all kinds of illegal under a common carrier regulatory regime. That service is GIGABIT - 50X as fast as the competition, for about the same cost as the old cable or DSL. That's exactly the kind of progress we want to promote, not outlaw.

Let's say you wrote a new set of common-carrier style regulations for internet, rather than inheriting most of the POTS bureaucracy. You may recall that for Google Fiber, Google looked for cities where the government would get out of the way and let them get the damn thing built, ASAP. If the FCC were managing ISPs the way they do phone companies, Google wouldn't (couldn't) have deployed quickly in Provo, they would have had to chose a city in Costa Rica or somewhere instead.

Again, I'm not an expert on the wholesale or retail internet market. I commented on the 2257 rules because I did have a useful combination of expertise in that area - and the FCC implemented the suggestions I and others made.

http://www.wired.com/2013/07/w...

Deploying broadband infrastructure isn't as simple as merely laying wires underground: that's the easy part. The hard part - and the reason it often doesn't happen - is the pre-deployment barriers, which local governments and public utilities make unnecessarily expensive and difficult.

Before building out new networks, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) must negotiate with local governments for access to publicly owned "rights of way" so they can place their wires above and below both public and private property. ISPs also need "pole attachment" contracts with public utilities so they can rent space on utility poles for above-ground wires, or in ducts and conduits for wires laid underground.

The problem? Local governments and their public utilities charge ISPs far more than these things actually cost. For example, rights of way and pole attachments fees can double the cost of network construction.

Here is the link to the FCC to file your comment. http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comme...

To provide a bit more detail to what NotSanguine said, there was some legalese in which the FCC classified broadband as an "Information Service" as opposed to a "Communications Service" back in 2002. The court then recently said that the FCC could apply Net Neutrality regulation on a Communications Service but not an Information Service, but the FCC and Congress are refusing to reclassify even though there is nothing legally stopping them (as far as I am aware). I do not understand the distinction between the two, though my understanding that a Communication Service would be a Common Carrier.

From the 2002 FCC news release I found, 'The FCC also said that cable modem service does not contain a separate "telecommunications service" offering and therefore is not subject to common carrier regulation.'

Ok we did this once 12 years ago and got DRM legal requirements non voted on. We can do this again.

For American Slashdotters:

1.) Tell the FCC what you think in polite terms and why it is a bad idea for business, consumers, and innovation?

2) Go to to your house of representatives website and use the zip code finder in the upper right hand corner. If your personal representative has a (R) in his or her name mention how you worry about the government overstepping its boundaries and ruining the largest emerging economic trend in history. Mention this FoxNews article, where Republicans are urging the FCC to bud out. If you work in the IT industry mention how you will be impacted and how unregulated internet led to the greatest economic expansion in history in the late 1990s.

If your representative has a (D) in his or her name, tell them how it will unfairly impact consumers and force unfair monopolies more power and ruin innovations with services like Netflix. Mention economic impacts as well. Use Netflix as an example of something that used to work until a few months ago and cite sources where L3 admitted it was being bottlenecked on purpose.

Also both parites are under the assumption that the internet worked just fine without net neutrality and we still had the largest explosion of GDP growth in history. So why change (Mega Telecom sales pitch). So inform them that they were regulated beforehand and this time it is different.

Remember it is not about adding new rules that were never needed. It is about preventing new rules that are not in your emails regardless of parties to counter the
FUD of the telecom lobbyists

3. Let the Obama know how you feel? Yes, he does read email and hand written letters every night. Perhaps seeing a large push in volume all angry about this may get his attention?
4. Let your senator know? Copy and paste the email you sent your congressman if he or she is of the same party. If not emphasize free market if he or she is a (r) and consumers and monopolies if he or she is a (D).

Be polite and factual as possible. Yes they are corrupt, but many are inept and get all their FUD from lobbyists. Mention we never had anything like this to counter the fud this is socialism to have the same lane and this is a fast enabler not something that slows regular traffice down yada yada. Mention your IT background too to build credibility.

If enough people whine it may delay or cancel the vote.

Sounds like a serious threat. Better cave.

It sounds to me like the CEOs have been eating their Wheaties and reading up on their Ayn Rand... Seriously, though, I love how the letter makes it sound like all the brouhaha is coming from a "concerted publicity campaign by some advocacy groups". I just looked at the FCC's public docket for response to Wheeler's previous proposal, and there are at least 10,000 responses. Even my state of Tennessee, not necessarily the most friendly to to Federal regulation, had 500 comments. I looked at a random sampling from TN, and couldn't find one posting with any particular love for the current regime of large ISPs. Words like "oligarchy" and "monopoly" were quite common.

Remember MCI? Yes, tell us all about how much less competition we'll have when you're forced to compete on service instead of in disservice. Blow it out your interconnect. We've already been down this road. ISP definition of "competition" is how much more they can over charge for shit than their competitors without actually delivering service. Thus the throttling unless the endpoints pay even more for the shit they already paid for.

ISPs are quadruple dipping: The website pays for access, the end user pays for access, OK, but then they charge extra for non-NATted IPs (hello, IPv6 exists) and unblocked ports ("business" class), and now they want to sell the websites "faster" access to the customers when we both already paid for that speed of access to each other, AND they want to put caps on the number of bits downloaded -- Hint: That's not how it works. They have to have the hardware to handle peak load, it doesn't matter if I suck in tons of gigs during off-peak time, caps are not about congestion, they're just yet another way to monetize. Not to mention "bursting" plans where they allow the first n-bytes of a download to come in fast, then throttle the shit out of it. "Up To X MB/s, (minimum 0 BAUD, yes Zero)", WTF. Damn, that's more that quadruple, but I lost count of how many dippings that is.

Visit OpenCongress and locate your congress critters via zipcode. Politely call each of them and say, "I want the FCC to classify broadband Internet services providers as common carriers", and have them repeat it (a real person will answer, and they'll have written down your words). I also mention that it should be considered illegal anti-competitive business practices for municipalities to granted ISPs monopolies, and that breaking up said monopolies will allow new competition to flourish. You can leave a comment on Issue #14-28 via the FCC Comment Filing System. Contact the FCC by Email: openinternet@fcc.gov, or call the FCC comissioners (but remember they're not beholden to voters). The most effective thing to do is write a letter to the editor mentioning your congressman's name and the net neutrality issue and send it to your local news outlet, that really gets their goat -- they care about the newspaper for some odd reason, maybe because old folks read it? Here's a petition, but these don't do shit, really it's just the illusion of shit-doing.

P.S. Here's a vid explaining the net neutrality issue. Here's another more sarcastic and long winded vid on the subject. and here's a video from an actual honest ISP. (NSFW, for brutally honest language).

Protip: Use a download accelerator to open multiple connections to the same file and trick the ISP into allowing you a faster speed. When the D/L starts getting throttled (hover to view the speed graph), pause it then unpause it and the speed goes back up (new connections = new "bursting" counter).

We all know this is BS. But we also know the FCC doesn't have much backbone. U.S. folks, please show them your support:

http://www.fcc.gov/comments
http://www.fcc.gov/complaints
http://www.fcc.gov/discuss

You may also write your senator or member of congress:

http://www.senate.gov/general/...
http://www.house.gov/represent...

Comments or complaints sent to any of the above may do a lot more good than any posted here.

We all know this is BS. But we also know the FCC doesn't have much backbone. U.S. folks, please show them your support:

http://www.fcc.gov/comments
http://www.fcc.gov/complaints
http://www.fcc.gov/discuss

You may also write your senator or member of congress:

http://www.senate.gov/general/...
http://www.house.gov/represent...

Comments or complaints sent to any of the above may do a lot more good than any posted here.

We all know this is BS. But we also know the FCC doesn't have much backbone. U.S. folks, please show them your support:

http://www.fcc.gov/comments
http://www.fcc.gov/complaints
http://www.fcc.gov/discuss

You may also write your senator or member of congress:

http://www.senate.gov/general/...
http://www.house.gov/represent...

Comments or complaints sent to any of the above may do a lot more good than any posted here.

They FCC used to classify the internet as a common carrier. They changed that in 2005 to an "information service", which they don't have rules to regulate. They already tried making up net neutrality rules, and a judge already smacked them down and told them they GAVE UP the ability to regulate broadband and that they'd need to reclassify to get it back. They can do this at any time.

Given that a court has already told them that their little rules don't apply, all these new proposals mean shit all. Any company can get around them by going to court, precident has been set. They should know this. They do.

The only reason they don't reclassify is because then they wouldn't get cushy lobbyist jobs when their time is up at the FCC.

By the way, you can email the FCC commisioners directly. Be polite! https://www.fcc.gov/contact-us

Also by the way, you should call your reps and bitch to them too. Keep up the pressure! http://whoismyrepresentative.c...

I found my reps and put them into my phone. It's amazing how much more you call when they're right there.

over the rules created by the FCC leadership, which was appointed and installed by various politicians...

No. They were all appointed by Obama.

Tom Wheeler, Chairman, appointed by: Obama; November 2013
Mignon Clyburn, Commissioner, appointed by: Obama; May 2013 and June 2009
Jessica Rosenworcel, Commissioner, appointed by: Obama; May 2012
Ajit Pai, Commissioner, appointed by: Obama; May 2012
Michael O'Reilly, Commissioner, appointed by: Obama; August 2013

I can't decide on a single reference due to the overwhelming evidence so let me google that for you.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=telecom+g...
or this: http://www.fcc.gov/guides/rece...

After receiving those grants the telecom companies negotiate the term "broadband" to the lowest speed possible so that that their current DSL networks meet the standard without upgrades.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=broadband...

The result of this is the telecoms receive the grants and the people receive nothing.

You all clamored for a tightly-corperate-coupled government to control the internet.

Then it happened, the FCC decided it could do what it wanted.So now instead of back-end interconnects being negotiated between an ISP and a content provider as had been the case, the government by fiat has declared the "winner" - the ISP.

Don't be obtuse. The government should have, but failed to, control the internet. That is why the ISPs are charging you and arm and a leg. One example- the FCC wanted net neutrality, which by all accounts most consumers want. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and the ISPs however killed the idea :-

Any semblance of net neutrality in the United States is as good as dead. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Tuesday struck down the Federal Communications Commission’s 2010 order that imposed network neutrality regulations on wireline broadband services. The ruling is a major victory for telecom and cable companies who have fought all net neutrality restrictions vociferously for years.

You are doing the ISPs work for them. Every time one of you should "less gov'mt" and burn flags, they rub their hands in glee. Less government = more freedom in them deciding how to skin you.

Also explain to me how is it that you can get cheaper broadband in countries even heavier regulated than the US .

Just to throw out a few other things that you can / should do:

A petition to sign.

An email address that the FCC has set up for public comments on this issue.

Contact information for your congressional representatives.

Just be clear about what your position is. As in the parent example - ask for ISPs to be reclassified as common carriers. If all you do is say that you're in favor of a neutral Internet, or network neutrality, they'll be free to interpret that any way they like.

You can still change this!

Start with filing your comment NOW at the FCC:

https://www.fcc.gov/comments

Click on 14-28 Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet

Here is a sample to give you some inspiration:

"It has become time to classify Internet Service Providers as Title II Common Carriers. The possibilities for abuse are just too great otherwise. Failure to do so will cripple the future economic well being of the United States, stifle innovation, and limit the freedom of consumers to choose the content they desire."

Yesterday, the net neutrality petition passed the halfway mark, with 18 days left to go. The FCC request for comments is still live and looking for your feedback, and Mozilla has an alternative in the offing.

Keep the pressure on, keep posting these things on your social networks, keep telling your friends. The only thing less effective than telling the government what we want is not telling them what we want. It is a double edged sword; either they do as we say, or we get one more bit of documentation to support reforming the government.

Send your opinions and desires about the issue of net neutrality to the FCC now using the following link: https://www.fcc.gov/comments

attach your comments to the Proceeding # 14-28, which is at the top of the list, it is entitled "Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet"

Leave a few paragraphs, tell them what you want.

You might not get what you want, but at least you'll have given them a hint of public opinion. Be nice.

again the link is https://www.fcc.gov/comments proceeding #14-28 .. make it happen. it only takes a minute or two.. as long as it took you to comment here on slashdot.

they are asking for comments, give them some.

Send your opinions and desires about the issue of net neutrality to the FCC now using the following link: https://www.fcc.gov/comments

attach your comments to the Proceeding # 14-28, which is at the top of the list, it is entitled "Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet"

Leave a few paragraphs, tell them what you want.

You might not get what you want, but at least you'll have given them a hint of public opinion. Be nice.

again the link is https://www.fcc.gov/comments proceeding #14-28 .. make it happen. it only takes a minute or two.. as long as it took you to comment here on slashdot.

they are asking for comments, give them some.

It's also important to keep the pressure on via the official channels, even if we're skeptical whether it will work. Documenting public sentiment and the government's consideration (or lack thereof) is a critical step on the path to better government. Please sign the net neutrality petition and reply to the FCC request for comments, and promote them on your favorite social networks.

The petition is almost up to half the needed signatures in about one week, but the signature rate has been slowing down with the weekend approaching as peoples thoughts turn to beer and barbecue. Please help give it a boost, and/or light it up again Monday or Tuesday, to keep the momentum going during the more active weekdays.

Most jammers work by blasting noise on whatever channels you are trying to block.

Perfect band pass filters are not a thing the exist, especially not for transmitters. Especially not for transmitters cobbled together by some guy on the cheap. The assumption that they do is why they (rightfully) smacked down LightSquared.

So, let's do a little exercise:

First, look at the 800 MHz Band Plan
http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedi...

See that slot right below "Cellular?" You know, that cut-away that has all the "Public Safety" allocations? Now, let's look at a quote from the FCC posting:
"According to deputies from the Sheriff’s Office, communications with police dispatch were interrupted as they approached Mr. Humphreys’ vehicle."

The jammer was blocking police radio. Not just cell phones. He was actively interfering with public safety communications. NON-CELLULAR public safety communications.

Personally? $48,000 is getting off easy. I'd add another order of magnitude onto it.

It did jam emergency communication equipment too

The Hillsborough Sheriff deputies reported that communications with police dispatch over their 800 MHz two-way portable radios were interrupted as they approached the SUV
...
On June 14, 2013, agents from the Tampa Office tested the seized cell phone jammer and confirmed that it was capable of jamming cellular and PCS communications in at least three frequency bands: 821-968 MHz, 1800-2006 MHz, and 2091-2180 MHz.
...
Public safety radio systems (such as those used by police, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians) operate in several portions of the 800 MHz band, which consists of spectrum at 806-824 MHz paired with spectrum at 851-869 MHz.

http://www.fcc.gov/document/48...

These petitions have been mostly worthless in the past. See this previous petition about net neutrality:
https://petitions.whitehouse.g...

The FCC is nominally an independent agency so the best way to make yourself heard is to file a comment on Proceeding 14-28 at:
http://www.fcc.gov/comments

They don't need to be publicly owned (think the government snoops now?) but they do need to be designated Common Carriers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

If you read that and agree, consider filing a public comment on Proceeding 14-28 at:
http://www.fcc.gov/comments

Podesta argues that pothole repairs will be disproportionately skewed towards smartphone-toting folks in the suburbs, not the low income areas, really?

What happens when a city bus load of smartphone-toting commuters hit a pothole? Thirty or fourty simultaneous alerts will all go out for the same pothole.

Don't poor/lower income areas, by definition (almost) have orders of magnitude more traffic that the affluent neighborhoods? Wouldn't the greatly increased traffic, even with disproportionately fewer smartphones in use, result in an equal or greater number of alerts than in the more affluent areas?

Finally, Mr. Podesta appears to have forgotten that the FCC has expanded it's lifeline phone service (which, though initiated under Pres. Reagan, is commonly referred to as Obamaphones) to include 2 Gb/month data plans and free smartphones?

If you want to support Net Neutrality, then you have to post a comment on the FCC website. The FCC has to formally consider every single comment it receives on its website, through its comment/complaint process.

You can say anything you want, but constructive, helpful comments are more important than personal comments.

The FCC doesn't make it easy to post your comment on this particular proceeding. Here is the link you need to follow. In the 'proceeding' text field at the top of the form, type the number '14-28.'

http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/uploa...

Since when has the definition of broadband been so high in the US. Last I knew it was still officially classified as anything faster than ISDN

Uh no, and it never has been. Last I knew, it was 6Mbps, as defined by the FCC — which also understands the definition of broadband.

...because they're too greedy. Let's go down the list of what I've read here so far:

1a. CB radio: this band, 11 meters, was formerly an amateur radio band and was taken away to make the CB band. It became the total morass it is now when they stopped licensing it.

1b. This also shows what happens to a band in the absence of regulation and licensing. You can get away with this in the ISM portions of the microwave bands due to the massive propagation losses; this was originally the thought for using 11 meters for the CB band, but they didn't factor in amps. giant antennas, and especially ionospheric propagation: hence the need for "CB" bands up in the UHF range (aka GMRS/FRS/etc).

2. You "free band" too much and start interfering with people who actually care, and you'll find out how fast they come after you. This largely depends on what country you are in and what band. As an example, ask the Brazilian guy who was on US military frequencies in NYC, or the people regularly busted for jamming or at least operating on police frequencies.

3. As pointed out repeatedly, this has already been invented both by hams and commercially.

4. Encryption on amateur radio bands is explicitly banned in most countries including the USA and Canada; strangely, this doesn't seem to exist in the ITU regs. I'm sure the thought on this is that Amateur Radio must not be used for business or as a replacement for other communications except in emergencies; also Amateurs regularly communicate with foreign countries, so everyone wants to be able to listen to them. If you look at the preamble of the relevant section of the law, the part about "fostering goodwill" would be inherently violated with encryption. Remember, everyone getting so gung-ho with EMCOMM is a relatively recent phenomena, and the primary purposes have always been experimentation such. It's sad that newer people to the hobby and even the national organizations like ARRL/CRRL/JARL/RSGB/etc seem to have forgotten this.

5. All nations' regulations follow (more or less) the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) regulations as a guideline, though every nation usually makes changes. As long as these changes don't impact other countries, it doesn't matter much. I believe this is part of the reason the world is organized into 3 regions: Europe, Africa, and the old USSR and its satellites are Region 1, the New World including Greenland is Region 2, and the rest of Asia and Oceania is Region 3.

Oh, and just to drive home the interference point, I had to jump on ARRL's web site and these were on the front page:

http://transition.fcc.gov/eb/O...
http://www.arrl.org/news/fcc-c...

So I guess this page on the FCC website doesn't actually mean anything then. I guess the bribes finally became large enough.

http://transition.fcc.gov/eb/O...

The FCC has an open issue for this, 14-28 Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet

You can see existing comments here:

http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comme...

You can add your two cents here:

http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/uploa...

The FCC has an open issue for this, 14-28 Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet

You can see existing comments here:

http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comme...

You can add your two cents here:

http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/uploa...