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Single Group Dominates Second Round of Anti Net-Neutrality Comment Submissions
New submitter aquadood writes: According to the Sunlight Foundation's analysis of recent comment submissions to the FCC regarding Net Neutrality, the majority (56.5%) were submitted by a single organization called American Commitment, which has "shadowy" ties to the Koch brothers' network. The blog article goes on to break down the comments in-depth, showing a roughly 60/40 split between those against net neutrality and those for it, respectively.
If there's ever a time - it's times like this. Koch brothers' evil and the bullshit associations they support, typically lobbying for the opposite of what their names indicate (ie. "America" or "US" or "Family" combined with "Freedom" or "Prosperity" or "Commitment" or some other similar term) and the public would be greatly served by having these organisations dismantled, only, the people need some help -- the lack of transparency and lack of media coverage of these types of incidents means the majority, whose votes 'could' count, are too often taken for a ride.
Agreed! Who could be against the FCC regulating the internet? Nutters and Koch brothers types, that's who! I look forward to the FCC getting it's mitts deeply into the regulation of the interntet. I mean, how else can I be sure of getting cheap, fast pings for my games if not by getting the feds involved? My freedom to ping REQUIRES laws, bureaucrats, agents, and harsh penalties to ANYONE who fucks with my pings!
Given that all a lack of the FCC being involved has got you is a Comcast/Time Warner monopoly, prices 2-3 times as high as the other side of the atlantic, service an order of magnitude slower than the other side of the atlantic, and double charging both the sender and receiver for data... YES, FUCKING AMEN, WHO THE FUCK COULD BE AGAINST GETTING THE FCC INVOLVED!
... of the FCC in the process. That is their primary beef. They see it as an encroachment of federal regulation which they're reflexively against.
This said, if you want the conservatives on your side there is a way to do it while getting effectively to net neutrality.
The issue is that we have a few large companies that are monopolizing everything. Why is that? Mostly because it is almost impossible to lay the last mile of cable from a regulation stand point. Cities, counties, and sometimes even states put taxes, regulations, and conditions on laying cable on the last mile.
Laying backbone cable is much easier. I think I saw an estimation that over 80 percent of US backbone bandwidth is laying idle. The issue is the last mile and the problem is government interference. LOCAL government interference. Not federal.
If you pitch to conservatives "hey, you're allowing monopolistic companies to rob you because local corrupt government officials are getting bribed to shut out competitors" then you're going to have an easier time getting conservatives on board.
If what you want is a better and freer internet... then this gets you that. With expanded competition, the big ISPs will not be able to play these games. Mom and pop ISP providers will sprout up like mushrooms in any area with an issue. Yes, running an ISP is an investment but not nearly as big of a deal as many people think.
If you only serve a given neighborhood then the costs aren't that big a deal. Why does a new ISP automatically have to service the entire city? Does the local sandwich shop need to open 50 locations to be able to operate? Obviously not. You open one franchise in one area that you feel you can turn a profit in and you expand from there if you are successful.
THAT is what the future of ISPing should be. Local ISPs that run last mile internet service in a few square blocks, cut their teeth on that, and then expand to neighboring blocks as they recoop their investment.
You don't need mega billion dollar corporations to make this work.
Right now, look at the cost of fiber cable. The raw wholesale cost of fiber. Look up what a fiber switch costs to serve a couple hundred users. This is the sort of price structure you are looking at and it is comparable to what you find in a lot of other small businesses.
Pitch this and conservatives will be all over it. If instead you say "we need the federal government to come in and regulate everything for the greater good"... you're going to run shivers up the backs of conservatives and they're going to fight you reflexively.
Why do we need to do it this way? Won't it be better this other way? Think about it.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I live in the Netherlands. In your opinion a far left, almost commie country if I read your comment well. We used to have a good health insurance system, good public transport and an excellent mail service, all state financed. Until some of our right wing bastards decided to leave all that to 'the market'. Services would improve and tariffs would decrease under the pressure of all the competitors in The Great Free Market, is what they told us.
The result? As to be expected with companies trying to deliver the least possible service for the highest amount of money (which IS the thing 'Free Market" is all about), health insurance prices are rising through the ceiling while coverage goes through the floor, public transport is more crappy than ever with higher prices and mail delivery goes the same way.
The blessings of Free Market and its Invisible Hand, as touted by right wing parties, are only blissfull for the Big Companies and their filthy rich owners. And taxes? Gone up anyway, except for the richest.
So, i will take a bit higher taxes in exchange for better services anytime. Here we see what your Holy Free Market does, and very, very few people like it. (Why they keep believing the shit the right wingers here spout and keep voting for them against their own interest keeps baffling me,)
What person will donate an airborne act of love?
Mostly because it is almost impossible to lay the last mile of cable from a regulation stand point.
Mostly because it makes a fucking lot of sense to not dig up the street every time someone switches to a new ISP.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Second all of that from Germany.
Energy companies - privatized. Prices have gone up, service is still good mostly because of government regulations, the market is now largely dominated by less than 5 big energy companies. Only recently thanks to renewable energy have smaller, local players re-emerged.
Public transport - long distance privatized. Service down, delays up, lots of smaller stations have been closed and lines discontinued, government subsidizes the whole thing still.
Telecommunications - privatized. Looked like a success for many years, but now that the old monopolist has stopped being a dominant player (it wasn't broken down like AT&T), service is going down the drain and prices are secretly climbing (base fees are low, nobody dares being the first to raise them, but they're all adding all kinds of additional charges, reducing service for the base fee so you have to buy a higher contract for the same, etc.)
Pensions - being dismantled as we look. We had a great state pension system. It survived both world wars and managed to pay out pensions even when the rest of Germany was flat broke. Heck, even in the few years after WW2 when Germany didn't exist at all and it was just an occupied zone. Now the state pension system is being systematically dismantled by politics while private pension funds and insurances work hard to convince you that you absolutely need them or you'll be poor when you are old.
The examples go on and on and on. In the end, it is quite clear that what my old philosophy teacher in school said was right: capitalism, communism, fascism, extremism, islamism, doesn't matter, be aware of everything that ends with -ism.
The free market is a cute idea and it works great for trade. But don't make it a religion. Many human endeavours are not trade and not suitable to be treated like that. I hope we all agree that things like art and love fall into that category, so we should be open to at least discussing if health, transportation and communications might fall into it as well.
The same is true for communism. The idea that every is equal is great for politics, and a lot of what's wrong in the west today is caused by our hidden abolishing of the "one vote per citizen" rule by allowing campaign financing to dominate the results instead of votes. But again there are lots of areas where treating everyone the same is not the right approach. Education, science, sports and business are all places where it's good if people start out with equal chances, but as their talents and abilities emerge, they need to be treated differently. And planned economy has been pretty much proved to be a disaster, too.
In every other -ism you will always find at least one small grain of truth. Maybe even ISIS has a right idea in its idiology somewhere. The problem is always if you think you can explain the whole world by one truth, one interpretation, one approach.
But religion doesn't built space ships, and science doesn't write operas, and capitalism doesn't create families.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
In the states, health insurance skyrocketed after obamacare forced insurance companies to carry high risk people as well as the 'rights' demanded by special interest 'social justice' groups that the rest of us must now pay for.
A fast search led me to factcheck.org where they disagree with you. Anecdotally I know of not one single case where this is true. Everyone I know got a better deal under Obamacare. Some stories are remarkable how much Obamacare helped them. This is personal experience only. But after a decade of alarming inflation of health care premiums, we are finally seeing it slow (4%).
The Affordable Care Act has it's problems. It could be fixed. But return to lifetime caps, dumping high risk clients, & no coverage for existing conditions, no thanks. & yes, we did have "skyrocketing premiums" regardless. Become a cancer survivor & your opinion will change.
SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
Yep, my total cost of healthcare here went up by about 40% but not as a result of the ACA. My employer's raised it but not because their costs went up my 40%. They raised it because they could. We are a Fortune 500 company & are self-insured. Their costs did not rise by anything close to 40%. OH, the HR asshole brought up the ACA, hinting around about reasons why we got such a huge increase, but when I brought up current healthcare inflation, he had no straight answer.
SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
thats not even a valid logical argument. after you talked about last mile, he also talked about last mile, specifically the from the box to the house, and then you accuesed him of being stupid by talking about NOT-last mile cable laying and some stupid failed car analogy. JFC you are stupid. his whole point is that it make no sense to redo the cabling anytime you switch proviers, no more than it makes sense to dig up your driveway and connect to a "different" road if libertarians ever got their "private/subscription road market" fantasies fulfilled. its simply another area that is best served by a single entity because it makes for a natural monopoly and the costs to consumers of trying to create a "market" for them are out of proportion to any benefit recieved from doing so.
but since you want to talk about that: barring the invention of teleportation there pretty much is only one way to put things in the ground, and it involves digging a hole.
They already use conduit in many places, and horizontal drilling and cable pulling, buts its limited in practicality because of the magnitude of force needed to pull/push cable over long distance would break the cable. which means the access points cant be very far apart. and they have to route around other underground infrastructure. they cant just go in straight lines for long distances. and you cant push/pull around corners (again: breaks the cable).
Idiots like you shouldn't enter speculative discussions.
Take thine own advice knave.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.