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Congressman Introduces Bill To Limit FCC Powers
An anonymous reader writes "Representative Bob Latta (R-OH) introduced a bill on Wednesday that would limit the FCC's power to regulate ISPs in a supposed effort to keep the internet free. The bill's text is currently not available on the Library of Congress webpage or on congress.gov, but a purported copy has been spotted on scribd. Representative Latta's press release nevertheless indicates that the bill is intended to prevent the FCC from re-classifying ISPs as common carriers under Title II. Latta is one of the 28 representatives who lobbied the FCC earlier this month and were shown to have received double the average monetary donations given to all House of Representative members from the cable industry over a two year period ending this past December."
The congresscritters are owned by lobbyists at this point, without question. Lock, stock, and barrel.
Even if things don't go the way they want, they'll just keep introducing legislation to try and get what their masters want. CISPA is the most blatant example of this.
Exactly which cable company is NOT providing telephone service these days? They're telecoms now, plain and simple. The skirt around regulations by claiming "different technology", but it serves the same purpose, and seems like the same thing to the general public. It would seem you're against strict regulation. What will keep telecommunications providers from inspecting every packet that crosses their wires and holding up smaller businesses for protectio...I mean, transit fees? If I pay for 50Mbps bandwidth, and Netflix pays their provider for 50Tbps of bandwidth, but Comcast decides they should be making more money, what stops them from throttling Netflix traffic in exchange for more money? Streaming a video might take...2-3Mbps, right? The number crunchers at Comcast, though, see that Netflix traffic on their network takes up some 50%+ of the total traffic, and they want to ride the gravy train. So, they'll hold up Netflix for more dough, and Netflix will pass on the upcharge to their customers - making Netflix look like the bad guy to people who don't understand how it all works. Shady stuff, man, and we shouldn't give that kind of power to Comcast or At&t or anyone else.
Free market capitalism implies competition. From Comcast's own announcement regarding their merger with TWC (http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/comcast-and-time-warner-cable-file-applications-and-public-interest-statement-with-fcc):
"Comcast and TWC do not compete against each other in any area"
We suffer from a cartel among service providers who keep their prices high and their service lousy by foregoing competition, and regulation is necessary to prevent this.
http://latta.house.gov/contact/ His number is Washington DC is Phone: (202) 225-6405. His Ohio toll free number is 800-541-6446.
Send him an email, or ring him. Please be polite.