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FCC Approves Net Neutrality Rules
muggs sends word that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission has voted 3-2 to approve an expansion of their ability to regulate ISPs by treating them as a public utility.
Under the rules, it will be illegal for companies such as Verizon or Cox Communications to slow down streaming videos, games and other online content traveling over their networks. They also will be prohibited from establishing "fast lanes" that speed up access to Web sites that pay an extra fee. And in an unprecedented move, the FCC could apply the rules to wireless carriers such as T-Mobile and Sprint -- a nod to the rapid rise of smartphones and the mobile Internet. ... The FCC opted to regulate the industry with the most aggressive rules possible: Title II of the Communications Act, which was written to regulate phone companies. The rules waive a number of provisions in the act, including parts of the law that empower the FCC to set retail prices — something Internet providers feared above all. However, the rules gives the FCC a variety of new powers, including the ability to: enforce consumer privacy rules; extract money from Internet providers to help subsidize services for rural Americans, educators and the poor; and make sure services such as Google Fiber can build new broadband pipes more easily.
OK, when will they release those, you ignorant fascist.
You forgot Rush Limbaugh's latest insight into the *real* reason for NN - it's so that Obama can regulate Fox News and talk radio out of existence! I shit you not - he's been going off on it for a couple of days now. Just when you think the paranoid, delusional mindset cannot sink any lower, BAM!
Beyond even that, they seem to miss that for competition to actually result in a healthy market, there must be dozens or even hundreds of competitors. Less than that and they'll settle into a comfey tacit agreement to keep prices high and service low.
Their understanding of market forces is at about a 4th or 5th grade level.
So how exactly was it not working? Seemed like it was all fine. Even those netflix notices were proven false. If anything this will slow everyone's speeds down for the minority extreme users out there. Anytime there is legislation wrapped up in the "it's for the consumer" mantra it ends up costing the consumer more for poorer service. Track records speak for themselves.