FCC Moving To Retain Control of Net Neutrality

An anonymous reader writes "The FCC is moving to take control of Net Neutrality once again due to public backlash over the issue, and plans to produce new regulation for broadband providers, as well as take a more rigorous role in their oversight. The details should be released on Thursday."

Comments

False dichotomy

[Locke2005]

How about:
- The customer decides what's fair
- The government ensures there is enough competition so that customers actually have a choice

Re:False dichotomy

[Shakrai]

The government ensures there is enough competition so that customers actually have a choice

Good idea. Let's start by ending the practice of government granting monopoly status to a single provider in exchange for monetary contributions...

Re:False dichotomy

[CyprusBlue113]

That would work great, except it wouldn't, as infrastructure of this kind is a natural monopoly. It would be as effective as removing the monopoly on interstates, water, power, etc. No one wants 15 power companies competing to run power lines through your neighborhood, and its a horrible idea from an investment perspective as well.

Re:False dichotomy

[CyprusBlue113]

The density penetration to make it worthwhile is just not attainable, especially as number of providers increases. Its not viable. Look back to the railroad days to see clearly what will happen.

Re:False dichotomy

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you seriously claiming that those poles can't handle a fourth (or fifth for that matter...) wire?

Are you retarded? 4th? 5th? What about NYC or LA, you think there are ONLY FOUR OR FIVE media companies that would like to provide service in these places? Or are you seriously claiming that it makes freakin sense to have dozens and dozens of bundles of copper/glass/whatever hanging off every pole just so every single media provider can hang their own cables? Gee, that's not much of a barrier to entry into the marketplace is it?!

Done right, the infrastructure itself should be put in place with as little unneccessary redundancy as possible and should be managed by a single, tightly controlled agency. This (like water, power and sewer) is the "natural monopoly" portion of the argument. Whereas the service that is supplied upon that media should be open to as many different and varied vendors as want access to the marketplace (dozens or even hundreds) in order to provide robust competition and therefore, the greatest benefit to the customer by way of traditional market forces.

-AC

Re:Fail-fail

[l0ungeb0y]

You are deluded.

The government is saying "We want ALL traffic treated equally"
Comcast is saying "we want to force Youtube, Netflix and Google to pay us or we'll THROTTLE their traffic"
So Comcast will be taking away your choices, they'll be able to block sites, restrict traffic and essentially extort every major site on the internet.
And you don't like it? tough. Where you going to go? AT&T? Verizon?
They'll all be pulling the same shit. Your only choice will be between who you think will be throttling your service the least.

With the proposed plan by the government, AT&T, Comcast and Verizon will have to leave the traffic alone and guarantee a level of QoS.
If all that video you are downloading is too expensive, they can charge you more, and THAT will be your choice.
And that's the way it should be.

If I want to download 500GB of movies a week and video-chat on skype all day, I will have that choice and the services will be fast.
But, I will have to pay for that just like anything else.

Why do you oppose that?
Why do you support Comcast throttling competing services and extorting them?
Why is that to be preferred over paying an extra $20 or $40 a month if you are a heavy bandwidth hog?

Frankly, I have had it with Americans who would rather toss-off their civil rights and protections in order to save a few bucks.

Re:Useless

[Big Boss]

They already did, and delegated that authority to the FCC. If you think that's wrong, write your congressman I suppose. All the alphabet agencies are created under basically the same rules though, so I don't expect congress to change the rules now.

It's my bandwidth

[Script Cat]

Why does the FCC have to step in and regulate. It's a simple matter of fraud and falls under the jurisdiction of the justice dept. I pay the ISP for my connection with a certain bandwidth. I choose to use that bandwidth to access youtube. What gives the ISP the right to throttle my bandwidth or charge the third party money for me to access their service. What this is about is the cable companies want to shut off access to these online services so they can compete with special for pay services like on demand movies. Its pay to play predatory monopoly business practices and has nothing to do in any way with net neutrality.

Re:Useless

[Pojut]

If, say, Comcast is not providing service at the level that customers want, then the customers need to take their business elsewhere.

Yeah. In my area, AT&T offers DSL, Comcast offers digital cable, and if we want anything else we have to stick our thumbs up our asses. Two options is not a choice, it's a fucking joke.

Re:Fail-fail

[misexistentialist]

Customers will pay one way or the other for actual capacity, but ending net-neutrality could have them paying for an extraordinary increase in ISPs' profits. The government sanctioned these ISPs' monopolies and needs to exercise some regulatory oversight in return.