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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.
4-5 years in the courts...
... on my next bill from Comcast
Is there is no local loop unbundling. This was the real solution. With competition to supply the service who cares if comcast or time warner are pieces of crap. You can drop them like hot potatoes. Instead we have more control and less freedom.
So when do they release these 322 pages of new rules? With all this transparency, what could POSSIBLY go wrong?! /s
I mean, after the broadcast flag incident, how is it everyone so comfortable with letting the FCC become the packet police? The regular court system has proved to be inadequate... when?
Wonder what the public key field is for?
You mean like the ISPs already seem to want to go to?
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Won't the market solve this problem? ISPs with smaller limits will be at a disadvantage?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Anyone know if this will have an immediate effect on the throttling ISP's seem to be doing to Netflix content unless they make special deals with the ISP's (I'm looking at Verizon specifically)? Does this mean it is now illegal to demand third party websites pay extra for their content to not be throttled (which is exactly the kind of scheme Verizon and other ISP's are currently running)? If so I wonder how this will effect deals already made to speed up content.
Won't the market solve this problem? ISPs with smaller limits will be at a disadvantage?
What market?
What process has been in secret? He has been open from the start. Just because republicans state it has been a secret does not actually mean it has been, unless you watch Fox news.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
this seems to good to be true... it's what the populace wants, what the corporations didn't, and it makes sense.
I can't correlate this with being a current government agency that interfaces between the public and commerce...
after so many time being disappointed by the choices our government makes i guess im in battered wife syndrome type shock.
I'm assuming such deals are now rendered unenforceable.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"IT'S (probably*) A TRAP!"
- Rear Admiral Akquixotic of the Mon Calamari
*: There's a small chance that this will end up actually helping consumers. A broken clock is right twice a day, and a reg-captured FCC occasionally does things that benefit the common man.
For example, the Block C Open Access provisions on Verizon and AT&T's LTE bands (or at least some of them) are what prevented these carriers from preventing tethering or the use of custom devices. Any FCC-certified device, rooted or not, tethering or not, can be on those bands, and there's nothing the carrier can do to stop it without breaking the law.
Those provisions have been a lifesaver for many customers of these two carriers who want to use the LTE from their phone to tether a laptop on the go, but don't want to pay extra or buy dedicated hardware for it. So the FCC definitely helped in a pragmatic sense with those rules.
Then again, I'm sure the industry coalitions have fully formed lawsuits written up, signed, in the envelope, and just waiting to be mailed when this decision hit. Who knows how long it'll be until the results of this trickle down through carrier policy and plan offerings to affect the everyman?
Somebody is dick riding Verizon....
Which is EXACTLY how it should be.
Water: I pay a standard fee for the line size of the service coming to my premises, and I pay a usage fee for the amount I consume.
Gas: I pay a standard fee for the line size & pressure coming to my premises, and I pay a usage fee for the amount I need.
Proposed Internet: I pay a standard fee for the bandwidth available coming to my premises, and I pay a usage fee for bits crossing the line.
Power is not free, installation of these lines is not free--this all costs money. Currently I pay my local utility for the lines/connection, and pay open market rates for gas/electricity as people are competing for low rates/contracts.
Why is this a bad thing?
It doesn't go far enough. What we really need is to separate content creators from the network providers. Have a separate utility company that only provides your internet connection and nothing else. That way, every company that wants to sell you product is on 100% equal footing. Make the market truly free for everyone to participate on a level playing field. After all, isn't that what's most fair to everyone? Distributing your cable TV service over your now independent internet link will open it up so you can get your TV service from anyone you want. Think of what the competition will do to the industry and how much better it will be for the consumer.
Oh wait. I forgot that the cable companies will bribe everyone in congress they can in order to keep their municipal monopolies firmly entrenched. So much for real free markets and competition. Rats.
I usually have to pay extra for that but now they can't charge more!
I think you mean 8 pages of regulations, 300 pages of summary. I mean unless you are claiming that citing justifications is the same thing as a regulation... Also what do the people lose, besides the ability for the ISPs to unilaterally act as paid gate keepers to us...
When you cant win, ad hominem.
It's the tin foil hat brigade...
Well, if new players can lay fiber now, we might start to see one.
One day they may welcome you to post under your real name, AC.
That's retarded, why pay twice for the internet? If they want to meter it, then if you use no data in a month, you shouldn't get a bill.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
You mean Verizon and Comcast.
I don't understand why that's so evil. That's how electric/water/gas works and the world hasn't stopped spinning. You pay a fixed amount for the capacity of your connection and a per-unit charge for what you consume. While I certainly prefer the flat rate unlimited pricing model, I can see why metered service would make more sense.
There is no what it "might do" it is what they have been actively doing, and trying to get money out of...Also there is nothing in this that allows the NSA to get taps on it.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
They've been doing that. Where have you've been.
Citation needed... Oh that right, you can't, because we don't even know the rules they voted on!
The FCC is, however, claiming a broad discretion to review non-neutral practices that may “harm” consumers or edge providers and force action. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/...
Repeat after me: "The FCC is not my friend." These are not "Net Neutrality" regulations, these are Title II rules that claims the Internet is not an "information system." Ha. Haha.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
Comcast:no, ...eh we're more of a callcenter these days anyway.
FCC:...thats a nice internet you have there....
Verizon: No.
Time Warner:NO
Republican party: NO!
POTUS: sure would be nice if it were just....
AT&T: NO GOD NO
FCC:......a little more neutral.
Rogers:
Good people go to bed earlier.
And like it did to the only other segment under title 2 right? I mean I just hate it every time I say a curse word on the phone and it is bleeped out...
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Because gas and water are matter that gets consumed. Physical things that need to be transported. Electricity has to be generated and the charge differential is consumed. Transmitting a lot or a little data uses nothing, except maybe minuscule amounts of extra electricity once the infrastructure exists. Metering data usage is a transparent cash grab.
Did Bush’s Broadband Deregulation Upend His Own NSA Wiretapping? Now that the regulations have changed, the situation is different.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Exactly. What market? Once you get outside of larger cities, the only "choice" you have is the local cable co (Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, etc) or dial-up.
They do that out here. The cities have laid a fiber network and charge a small fee to anyone who hooks up to it. The providers are all given equal access to that network. We have 12 of them, and they fight tooth and nail to get your business. No caps, cheap costs, and customer service just this side of fellatio.
Your hatred of Comcast and fear of what it might do has lead to the biggest restrictions on freedom since the Patriot Act
Your sense of reality needs to be rebooted. "Might do?" They've been doing it openly, for a couple of years now, you twit. You're the one pissing your panties over imaginary "might do" and using bullshit conspiracy theorist "reasoning". Look up how much censorship power Title II gave over landlines, for starters.
Jesus Tapdancing Christ. You need your dosage upped.
LMOL ok Potsy. Keep the tinfoil hat on nice and tight. Net Neutrality has been about an OPEN INTERNET. That means ISPs cannot throttle traffic. Cannot block applications from using the internet. Yet somehow you think that means censorship. Wow somebody failed at reading comprehension.
Don't sweat it man. I'm sure once Comcast dumps you you can find a job shilling for some other evil master.
Like most libertarian pseudo-intellectuals, you think that calling someone you disagree with "fascist" makes it so.
Haterz gonna hate...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Fox News refusing to show you the open and up front discussions on this does not mean they didn't happen. You should try a different source for your information.
So I guess that means it can't possible be happening to other people *cough* *Netflix* *cough* - dumbass.
What will happen when the FCC decides to use the new powers to "clean up" (i.e. censor) the Internet the same way it's done to TV and Radio?
Yeah, it might be like when they regulated the phone service and suddenly there were no phone sex lines -- oh, wait.
So you like taking it up the ass from Comcast....good for you....
I guess we can hope that the government will use a better lubricant.
"Democrats force through socialist regulations." Nothing Obama does in the next year will make durable law, not amnesty, unnatural marriage, communication regulation, healthcare subsidies... A conservative President and congress will set things right in 2010
I sure can't wait for 2010 for this to happen. I expect we will have flying cars by then as well.
I'm glad to see at least one other person on a supposedly "technical" website has the first fucking clue what Title II is.
If the Federal Government can't determine what's fair, then who can?
Is it fair for someone to have exactly one choice of "broadband" ISP, when that choice is extremely unreliable, outdated, overpriced ADSL?
Is it fair that corporations get to ignore what customers want and only sell what's the most profitable for them, paying absolutely no attention to customer satisfaction, with a three-pronged "bend over and take it / don't have Internet / move house" ultimatum?
If the Federal Government won't stand up for its citizens, what recourse do citizens have left? Organize and march up to some corporate office and demand (peacefully or otherwise) to get what they want? Give up their job and completely change their life around to move to one of the handful of locations in the entire country that has actually good Internet?
Connecting to and participating in the global economy shouldn't be a privilege reserved for the upper crust elite. It should be accessible to everyone. Hell, there is an *enormous* financial incentive to do it, since without that connection, you won't sell nearly as much stuff on the 'net. Games, video, software, you name it.
You corporati would gladly tear down the national highway system to avoid paying taxes on roads, even knowing full-well that without roads, people won't be able to drive to Best Buy or Target or K-mart or Walmart to buy your shit.
Infrastructure is a special type of good. It's a GDP and productivity and economy multiplier. Infrastructure deserves special protection. Ever since man discovered the mechanical lever, we've been using infrastructure to enable us to do more than we could without it. The capitalist system has a significant weakness in that, if left completely unregulated, no one will pay for the infrastructure. Categorizing Internet service as infrastructure is exactly the move that needed to be made. IN PRINCIPLE.
Now what remains is to see what actual changes fall out in practice. The principle of the matter and the actual implementation may turn out to be very disjoint, which would be unfortunate. But leaving the system as-is would all but ensure that the current bad state of affairs would continue, since the old way was backwards *just in principle*, let alone in practice.
If that's all it was, it would not have required 300+ pages to spell the rules out. Nor would it be necessary to keep the new regulations secret — despite repeated attempts to publicize them before the voting took place.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
We have a Conservative President. He is far more Conservative than Reagan or Bush Sr.
We only have Conservative parties at the moment. There is the just right of center Democrats, and the holy-shit-complete-nutbag so far to the right as to be off the fucking charts Republicans. And then we have the Tea Party subset that make THEM look sane.
Disregarding your rant against Fox News, the EFF had some serious objections too:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/02/dear-fcc-rethink-those-vague-general-conduct-rules
I do not know what the status is of the general conduct rules. Do you?
Citation needed... Oh that right, you can't, because we don't even know the rules they voted on!
They voted whether to classify ISPs as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act. And they eschewed some of the restrictions, like TFA said, so if you want to know then GOOGLE THE FUCKING LAW. The new restrictions are a subset of that.
Christ, people just spew shit out and don't even bother TRYING to inform themselves.
this ladies and gentlemen is the RWNJ Brain At Work.
They (the FCC) literally have a series of meeting, press releases, and publicly proposed rules, public commentary, all saying "Here it is! This is what we want to do, what do you think?", and still the RWNJ's decry "we have no idea what's going on, why won't they tell us what's going on, they're hiding it from us".
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Wait, so the telephone act of 1996 was only released to the public a couple weeks ago? Why dont you use your brain, and your eyes, and read the comment I replied to before being a defensive fanboy and jumping to vastly incorrect conclusions. He was talking about the current rules that the commission was voting on with the change to title 2.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
From your own link:
The Fairness Doctrine was abolished in 1987. So you're frothing at the mouth over a doctrine that was discontinued almost 30 years ago, and was intended to promote discussion of public issues on a scarce medium, and you think it is somehow relevant to the Internet in 2015.
But hey, don't let actual details get in the way of your breathless hyperbole.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
Some states in the US allow you to choose your electricity provider - it's still coming down the utility company's power lines regardless, but you can buy from a different company.
so then you're opposed to the internet as it stands right now?
you oppose the preservation of the status quo in lieu of ISP's being able to block services they don't want you do have?
Say being blocked from Amazon Prime and forced into Verizon Prime?
Or Comcast redirecting Netflix users to Hulu?
Or otherwise turning internet delivery into a fancier cable channel, with certain websites available in certain tiers of service?
You're a shill.
Or a liar.
Or just ignorant.
But likely all 3.
Net neutrality is the basis of the internet as we know it: ISPs provide access to the entire internet, not just the parts they want us to see.
If you like the internet as it stands, then you like NN. \
It's that f!@#()% simple.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
... the biggest restrictions on freedom since the Patriot Act...
Go on....
This will be a mass of restrictions, requirements, taxes, subsidies, and pay-offs to favored groups. I'm sure trial lawyers will be happy, because there will no doubt be lots of new things they can sue about.
Like what exactly?
And now that the regulations have changed, the NSA will have a freer hand with wiretaps.
How would reclassifying as a telecommunications service change that?
Not quite true. Bandwidth IS a finite resource. The cable to each DSLAM can only carry so much data per second. This is why you (probably) don't have gigabit speed to your house right now. As people consume more bandwidth, the providers need to upgrade the equipment. However, hopefully this will persuade them to actually upgrade, instead of looking at slow speeds as a bonus (Gee Netflix. Sorry things are so low, but for a low fee of a million dollars, we might be able to upgrade).
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
What a nice birthday present the FCC has given me! I would have never belied it a year ago that we get this result from Tom Wheeler.
I'm in a city of 50,000, in a country of 4.5 million. I have more choices than I can poke a stick at. The company that owns the copper is not allowed to sell internet access and the wholesale price they charge is regulated.
There's also fibre.
Umm, no that is FOX news SOP, I was agreeing with you if you hadn't noticed!
There is a war going on for your mind.
And you know this how? Are you a lawyer? Do you know how hard it is to make rules such as this?
When you cant win, ad hominem.
All of your "potential" scenarios are so fucking crazy, either from a technical or business standpoint I gotta ask you for the number of your drug dealer. That's some good shit.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Silicon Valley not only backs it, they created it.
The father of the internet supports it.
It's nothing secret, its simply the codification of the current status quo.
As for "what Comcast might do" ... they've ALREADY DONE IT. Several times. Tried several more. Its why they oppose NN in the first place, and if they could have gotten NN declared totally dead (instead of merely struck down on technicality a few years ago) they wou;d have been even more brazen more immediately.
"This whole thing" (your post) is a pile of BS written by an ignorant, incompetent shill trying to lie for the telcos.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Water. gas, and power are not telecommunications, the Internet is.
Ordinary phone usage isn't metered, for instance.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
First of all I stated electrons, as how the data is transmitted, not bandwidth. In addition you contradicted yourself. You stated that in order to get more bandwidth the providers can upgrade their equipment, makes it not quite a finite resource, but theoretically finite,
The reason I dont have gigabit service now is because they do not want to run fiber here, but even still fiber has a so called unlimited capacity, limited only by the equipment on the ends.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Will you be back here to refute your own dire predictions when they prove false? I'll not hold my breath.
Thank you, I couldn't think of a really good example for that pearl-clutching moron.
There is a war going on for your mind.
What makes this thing kind of odd is that the FCC voted approval for the FCC to exert control over these service companies. Shouldn't that have been done by some other office, with the FCC being granted actual teeth by the administration to manage the process?
Nor is there any capital in grammer (actually, grammar), or alert. Nazi, I'll grant you.
On a land-line phone, for instance, if you don't happen to use it during a billing cycle, you still pay the same amount that you do as you would if you were on the phone all of the time.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It was not an objection to the rule, it was worry and wanting clarification. those are not the same thing.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Because bandwidth works differently to those.
For electricity, water and gas, every bit of it you consume has to be produced somewhere and then shipped to you. This isn't true for bandwidth; bandwidth is produced on a constant basis at every link in the internet and is then thrown away if it's not consumed immediately. As a result, any bandwidth used at off-peak times has zero impact on the production cost, because you're using bandwidth that would've had to be thrown away anyway.
The sad thing is about 100 different commenters have pointed out that it's 8 pages of regulations & ~300 pages of justification & background to these guys & they just keep on spewing bullshit.
https://twitter.com/GigiBSohnF...
There is a war going on for your mind.
I approve of the FCC decision, but I have a concern about lack of regulation on pricing matters.
I suspect this will end up like POTS. Here is a sample of a future bill.
25/5 Broadband Service Base Fee $39.99
Advertising Fee $20.00
Plant maintenance Fee $20.00
Regulatory Capture Fee $20.00
Washington Lobbying Fee $20.00
Bandwidth Fee for data over the cap limit 100.00
Total amount due this month: $219.99
Some action on the FCC's part to limit these fees will be required in the future.
Where do I have to move? I like the idea of CS fellatio.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
I have read Slashdot almost every day for 14 years, but never felt the urge to post a word, until now. I teethed on a 4k PDP-8e, wire wrapped my first PC, and today am happy just struggling with .NET. But really, when Google can comment on the text before the rest of America gets to see it, it's pretty sad. As a radio amateur I understand the need for spectrum allocation, but Internet bandwidth is not finite. Having failed previously in the courts this is just another way to achieve the same control. The proper way to handle this is through congress. Given the lobbying that goes on, maybe that is impossible, but an Executive decision is not closer to the will of the people either.
Last year netflix was paying comcast extra fees to not be in a 'slow lane'. I imagine by now Netflix is going to stop payment.
Much to Illiberals' chagrin.
I'm "frothing at the mouth" over the reintroduction of it in 2015. It was wrong then, it is wrong now...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
No, we used to have that, back in the days of dial-up. It went away and never returned, except for wireless telcom carriers -- who are now also abandoning metered service.
sig: sauer
As soon as the regulations are available, search them for terms like âoehate speechâ and "disparate impact." This will be a mass of restrictions, requirements, taxes, subsidies, and pay-offs to favored groups.
Exactly, my Title II regulated Phone line is constantly being censored.
it's what the populace wants, what the corporations didn't
All sorts of corporations wanted this passed.
It's 300 pages. Does what *you* wanted take 300 pages to express? No? HMM.
Good luck with that, as the saying goes. I am really looking forward to you all finding out what has really happened today.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How long does it take you to read? Because 300 pages is a lot, but not a lot to read in two weeks. Is there anything that you've come across that's objectionable or is this just FUD?
When you have many very highly paid lawyers who are about to use every trick they have to shred the newly formed rules, then 300 pages sounds right.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
I am in a city of 1.26 million people, in a second world country called the United States and I have only 2 choices over 4Mbps. and zero choices over 24Mbps
Sorry, I've been arguing with a lot of idiots today (cf. xkcd.com/386) and I got Poe'd.
Irrelevant.
Imagine if water was free. The pipes still have a finite capacity (and can be upgraded, but the capacity will still be finite). If every single person on a neighborhood wanted to fill a swimming pool at the same time, it would screw over people who just want to take a shower.
We still could not feasibly give everyone as much unlimited water as they wanted.
Who, Fox? Yeah, I know.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
As I understand it, the FCC and the description of common carriers under "Title II" of the Communications Act of 1934 was created by Congress. The FCC is ruling that Internet Service Providers are "common carriers" under the language of Title II, and not "information service providers" under the language of Title I. This ruling includes adjustments/interpretations of the Title II language as the FCC envisions it would be applied to Internet Service Providers.
The FCC didn't give themselves this authority, the FCC was created by Congress to have this authority.
anyone have an idea?
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
I don't have time to vet it while I'm working, but someone posted this on another site. Maybe this will help?
http://www.fcc.gov/document/protecting-and-promoting-open-internet-nprm
An "Open Internet" doesn't need 300+ pages of FCC Packet Police powers! All you have to do is go to a court and say "This person promised me 20Mbps to the Internet and I'm only seeing 1Mbps/nothing at all" and the court says "Yep, looks like fraud." Why have the courts been insufficent?
Can you point to ONE example of a "Net Neutrality" violation happening today? Ever? Can you then be so confident that the same people who brought you the Broadcast Flag are the right people to be enforcing this?
Wonder what the public key field is for?
Or, you know, the ISPs could just be up-front about what they're actually selling for the price they're charging.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
They already were... They classify what communications fall into what category.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
The difference is that you pay for the pipe, and not the data itself. The water company doesn't charge you for the pipe, they charge the water.
Is there a definition of what is THE internet?
Its the internetwork connect. Its a framework of voluntarily linking connections for mutual
surely comcast can create a parallel construction and sell however they wish like a private toll road. It could have discrete points where it could tap into the "real" internet. Thus amazon or netflix or whomever could connect into this autobahn on the goes-into side and pop out into "the" internet at some Comcast hub in the customers town.
If this happens, I'll eat my hat. No one is going to buy anything but the real internet, and you won't see company set up shop without users, which are all on the real internet. Also, the instant they start offering an internet gateway they become an ISP and regulatable, so there is no loophole. If they don't, they will need content on their private network, which no one is going to provide, because most of the content exists outside their networks. No one wants their shitty content, and thats their problem. If people did, they wouldn't have to throttle netflix for competing with their services.
Picture it like FED Ex, transporting a package 90% of the way, then mailing it. the postoffice might not charge differently for different customers and Fed Ex might not either (or they could) but only customers with valuable deliveries would be willing to pay the cost of the combined service, which would be dominated by the Fed Ex high speed service.
almost completely diffrent because niether fedex nor the post office own any of the infrasturcture, just the delievery mechanism. Any delivery service can use the same roads.
It is limited only my the amount of equipment. You can add more equipment and add more capacity. There is also no end to it, it is not something that once used is gone.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Actually the telcom rules protect the providers from having to regulate content. But hey don't let your paranoid fantasies interfere with a good conspiracy.
I pay a fixed monthly amount, plus a variable cost per minute of calling.
no they dont.. They have a max capacity per second, however we are talking about something running out.. as in you get no more. You do not run out of the bandwidth. Once it is used it is not gone. And you can upgrade equipment to get me per second speed.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
How companies like Time Warner will defeat Net Neutrality: Self-divestiture.
The "Time Warner Cable/Internet" you know of today becomes a myriad of companies specifically designed to continue on with business as usual while still adhering to the letter of the law:
- Time Warner Broadband - a company which does nothing more than operate Hybrid-Fiber-Coax outside plant (the actual wires on the actual poles).
- Time Warner Cable - a company which leases spectrum from TWB (above), and provides cable-video service on that outside plant
- Time Warner Transit - a company which does nothing more than provide wholesale (non-retail, non-mass-market) internet connectivity to ISPs and other service providers. As a wholesaler, TWT is not encumbered by net neutrality regulations.
- Time Warner Internet - a company which leases spectrum from TWB (above) to provide IP connectivity to end-users. It obtains *all* of its internet connectivity from TWT (above), and charges metered billing to all its end-users (you pay a flat rate PLUS you pay "by the bit", the same way you pay for water or electric today).
Netflix, et al, will have to tithe properly to TWT if they want access to TWI's customers, since TWT is the only path to GET to TWI's customers. The FCC can't really punish TWI for this move, without opening up an even messier Pandora's box of trying to tell ISPs "which upstreams they HAVE to obtain connectivity from".
Yes, it'll all be a LITTLE more complicated than that, but they've got teams of lawyers to work out the details.
Yes. There's real, physical bandwidth limitations, then there's "politics of scarcity" bandwidth limitations imposed by blockhead carriers that make the US look like a backwater of retards next to Asia and Europe.
Another FCC commissioner seems to disagree:
And if it's really responding to public comments to the rules... WHY IS RESPONSE TO PUBLIC COMMENT BEING KEPT SECRET?
Help, stop, the transparency, it's blinding me.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
Oh looks its mi back to provide more lies, while backing his arguments with links to sites that actually disprove everything he says.
Mi, the gentleman who declares "I'm not a bigot, I love (insert random slur here)."
Seriously though. Yet again, from your links:
The Fairness Doctrine had two basic elements: It required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to air contrasting views regarding those matters. Stations were given wide latitude as to how to provide contrasting views: It could be done through news segments, public affairs shows, or editorials. The doctrine did not require equal time for opposing views but required that contrasting viewpoints be presented.
Let us remember that the FCC exists because "the spectrum" is seen and treated under law as a public resource owned by the nation's citizens. So the FCC was
created to administer it (in lieu of created the Federal Minitry of Truth you mention and worry about) in a collaboration between government (and the public's) interests in having the spectrum used in the publics benefit, and private interests in making money while doing so. A middle ground, a middle way, between government provided (and potentially abused) content, and private use (and potential abuse) of the spectrum. A compromise.
That's background. Onto the Fairness Doctrine:
No part of the Fairness Doctrine had anything to do with determining "what content is fair".. So right off the bat you're spouting BS. Rather, it simply requires that broadcasters talk about "things in the public interest", which essentially means news. Like right now, there is a major trade deal going down, the TPP, that not one news channel is talking about. OR during and after citizens united, they rarely talk about the money in politics. Such ignoring of important issues would be a valid basis for a complaint to the FCC. And complimentary to the first part of the rule, when discussing or presenting these "things in the public interest", the presentation couldn't be one sided. IE, no Fox News. This so far is logical, straightforward, and completely reasonable.
But lets dig further. More from your link:
In 1974, the Federal Communications Commission stated that the Congress had delegated it the power to mandate a system of "access, either free or paid, for person or groups wishing to express a viewpoint on a controversial public issue..." but that it had not yet exercised that power because licensed broadcasters had "voluntarily" complied with the "spirit" of the doctrine.
So it was never actually enforced. Broadcasters, chiefly the big 3 until the advent of cable, implemented a similar policy internally and voluntarily.
I could point out your stupidity and ignorance on these topics all day long, but I'm running out of time and need to cut the history and facts lesson short. But the history even gets more interesting: when the FCC revoked the doctrine, there was significant opposition to it. They feared one sided mouth pieces for companies, politicians, or other special interests. A de-evolution of political discourse fed by the chief mechanic people rely on to be informed. Any of that sound familiar, like a news channel or two you know about? Hmmm?
In short: go away you ill informed troll.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
You couldn't see the 300 page document before it came out today. The proposed regulations were not public before the vote.
Also my comment isn't about if they are good or bad, just that the process that made them certainly was in no way open.
Considering it's the conservative moral majority nutjobs that want to "clean up" the interwebs, I'm not really sure what your point is. I thought the conservative view was that regulation was bad and that these rules were bad? Now you're saying they're bad because they let the conservatives apply their own narrow morals to them?
Who's side are you on?
It depends on what was actually occurring. If Verizon / Comcast were degrading performance based on IP ranges or traffic type than this would help them. If, as it seems was the case, this was a peering agreement issue than the rules would do nothing to improve the situation.
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!
It absolutely was an objection! I don't see how you could possibly read the EFF's letter and think anything else.
Snippets:
Our message has been clear from the beginning: the FCC has a role to play, but its role must be firmly bounded.
But we are deeply concerned that the FCC’s new rules will include a provision that sounds like a recipe for overreach and confusion: the so-called “general conduct rule.”
First, it suggests that the FCC believes it has broad authority to pursue any number of practices—hardly the narrow, light-touch approach we need to protect the open Internet.
We are days away from a final vote, and it appears that many of the proposed rules will make sense for the Internet. Based on what we know so far, however, the general conduct proposal may not. The FCC should rethink this one.
The EFF clearly has a problem with the general conduct rule. Leave the partisan group-mindedness behind--there are clearly some not-black and some not-white (grey, you might even say) shades here.
The dial-up that I used did not have limits.
No, we used to have that, back in the days of dial-up. It went away and never returned, except for wireless telcom carriers -- who are now also abandoning metered service.
So what is data caps with additional fees when you go over?
No they charge you a fee for maintenance of said pipes (also to cover the initial cost of laying them), and they also charge you for the water you use.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
So, this is about my person and character flaws, huh?..
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Bullshit. The expectation of available anonymity is one of the things that makes the internet work. The only way to ruin your life on the internet is not availing yourself of this.
Since when players can lay fibers ? CableCo now have stronger monopolies than never.
I like the idea of fellatio, especially when delvered by Kate Upton.
That would help rein in the crazies, but it's not going to happen outside the fevered imaginations of said crazies.
You are talking about the equipment on the endpoints. The fiber itself does not have that limit.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Time to get some professional help for your emotional problems AC.
They hide stuff from Republicans in books.
The regulation itself is not gonna be released before a few weeks. This was confirmed by a Republican FCC chair during an interview on Reason TV.
>search them for terms like “hate speech” and "disparate impact." Nope not there, nothing like them either.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
This is a 9 month old document...
It used to be.
Not that it was right.
Also now cell phone usage is metered.
A Republican FCC chair confirmed that the document that has been voted on today will not be made public before a few weeks.
This has been a great demonstration as to how easily the ignorant Republican masses are controlled by right-wing media designed to keep them frothing at the mouth so they never stop, think, and realize that the conservative movement is a scam. They'll come out against individual rights, and in favor of corporate masters whenever Fox, wingnut blogs, and hate radio tell them to.
Yeah, I'm getting annoyed at this whole "years in court" thing too. Title II is NOT new. It was established in 1933-4? and lasted until the late 90s I believe. Title II is very well tested. Further, we've had several DC circuit court cases in 2014 where the judges said that the FCC had the authority if they reclassified. They have. Done Deal.
They left out one important detail though... we didn't get unbundling back. It used to be that the phone carriers had to lease their lines to whomever asked for a decent price. That let mom and pop ISPs into the field to compete on service, and it was awesome for creating competition.
Tweet from the FCC Text of #netneutrality rules are only 8 pages. Rest of proposal responds 2 record submitted by millions of Americans, as required by law.
Now don't you feel ridiculous?
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
So you're a crazed wingnut. Big deal, you fools are a dime a dozen in the less educated parts of the country.
Actually, my source of info is wired... http://www.wired.com/2014/06/n...
When did the Fairness Doctrine get reintroduced?
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
I guess your health care has finally become affordable after the vote on the Affordable Care Act... ;-)
Elections matter :)
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
Except the likely hood of the right taking the presidency in 2016 is slim. The fact they keep distancing themselves from minority voters is going to keep them out of the White House for several election cycles.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
The FCC *is* judging content... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
and for the fun part... https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Right-wing media has put some effort into misleading the easily-misled Conservatives on this topic.
It's not really their fault that they lack critical thinking skills; They're frothing because their masters tell them to froth.
Living in constant fear of imagined enemies is a terrible way to spend your life, but a quarter of the country chooses to be terrified by lying far-right-wing media that plays them like a fiddle, and the rest of us just stand by and let it happen.
What are you talking about? This has absolutely nothing to do with executive privilege. This is a power that Congress gave to the FCC a long ass time ago. To classify and regulate communications. It's what they were created to do.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Operation Choke Point is a good example of government "fairness"...
So the comcast and TWC trials of limited broadband was all in my head?
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Lol, as if an ignorant conservative can win a national election when we can so easily see their complete insanity on display via the Internet. We're not all terrified conservatives living in a Fox-News-constructed false-reality designed to make us froth and hate civilization.
In my lifetime, there has never been a per minute cost of using a land-line phone in any region that I have ever lived, except for long distance calls, which I only very rarely make. I used to have per-minute billing on my cell phone, but have moved to a flat-rate fee per month on that as well, and have unlimited local calling, 24/7... just like the land line.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Thanks your local government who signed exclusive agreements with CableCo...
It was not an objection, it was a request for clarification.. Here is the snip it you conveniently left out:
Late last week, as the window for public comment was closing, EFF filed a letter with the FCC urging it to clarify and sharply limit the scope of any “general conduct” provision:
When you cant win, ad hominem.
More importantly, will their be a Ministry of Silly Walks?
Am I the only one concerned that Google's lobbyist had something slipped into the proposed regulation LAST NIGHT? We the people weren't allowed to see the regulation before it was voted on, but SOMEHOW Google's lobbyist got their hands on it and proposed a change to PART OF the committee. Not even all five of them, just the three who voted yes. Of course, since the original draft wasn't public, there's no way to know exactly what sweetheart deal was slipped in to benefit Google. That's all this Title II regulation will be... A handout to special interests.
Err, you do know what this thread is about right? The FCC regulations that allow exactly this?
second world country called the United States
Can you people please learn what first, second, and third world mean/meant.
First world - Connected to the United States and the West diplomatically.
Second world - Inside the Soviet sphere of influence, I guess this applies to Russia today.
Third world - Nations not allied with any side in the cold war. This had a connotation of rather backwards less developed. This was not necessarily the case of all Third world places though. It simply meant they were not strategically interesting enough to First or Second world parties to have a close relationship. Often the reason for that was because their economies were small and the natural resources they controlled were few, hence the associate with poverty in common language.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Yeah, I'm getting annoyed at this whole "years in court" thing too. Title II is NOT new. It was established in 1933-4? and lasted until the late 90s I believe. Title II is very well tested. Further, we've had several DC circuit court cases in 2014 where the judges said that the FCC had the authority if they reclassified. They have. Done Deal.
What judges ruled was that the FCC couldn't regulated the ISPs because the ISPs weren't classified under Title II. The judges did not rule on whether classifying the ISPs under Title is actually legal. The latter is part of the cases that will be brought up over the next couple years.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
I'm friendly towards the idea of net neutrality, but this feels like a "hold my beer and watch this" type move on the part of the FCC. Using 1930s era regulatory framework that wasn't even remotely designed for what the FCC is trying to do seems like just asking for unintended consequences. The FCC admits as much when it talks about how it is going to use forbearance to try and shoehorn this thing to fit regulating the Internet. That said...is it a situation where the FCC decided to act because Congress declined to take the issue up and craft something more appropriate?
Did you read your own quote?
The rules are eight pages.
Then there is 79 pages detailing rules that will not be actionable. More rules that the companies will not have to comply with and so on...
When you cant win, ad hominem.
A scheme to kill off Internet video and protect cable TV profits.
An Internet connection with a low enough cap and overage fees will make Internet video too expensive to use and customers (the cable ISPs hope) will flock back to cable TV for their video entertainment.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
If this is true, where's the link to the rules? Where can I find them? By the way, Google had them changed (apparently some lobbyists got a sneak peak) so of you have the pre- and post- Google version, I'd appreciate it.
Is that how land-line phones work?
Title 2 has been around since 1996. If you don't know what it says, that's on you, not the FCC. All the FCC did was reclassify internet services as common carrier, covered by Title 2; the 300+ pages is an account of their justification for doing so, not 300+ pages of new rules.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Can you people please learn what first, second, and third world mean/meant.
You are correct for "meant" and not correct for "mean".
First world: best of the best.
Third world: unsafe shithole with warlords and no drinkable water.
Second world: everything in between.
Learn to love Alaska
My point is that you (and those that believe that the government will ever do anything correctly and/or with our best interests in mind) have now given said nutjobs authority to do just that. Many in our government have been chomping at the bit for years wanting to find a way to establish more control over the internet. This is the beginning of that end game. Just wait and see.
I also hate to be the one to inform you, but many in that "moral majority" have also been liberals. Remember Tipper Gore?
As far as who's side I'm on...neither. I think Bob Dylan has a song about something similar.....
Mark my words....this will not end well.
That makes sense for consumables like gas or electric, but the only real consumable in networking is peak bandwidth. It costs the same to transmit your 10Mbps stream for 10 minutes as it does for 10 hours. It costs less to transmit a 5Mbps stream for a week.
For the same reason, our highly regulated landlines are billed as a flat monthly.
Nice in theory, but has been used in the past to subsidize the running of cable to the remote mansions of the 1%.
Do you know the power consumption difference between an idle switch and one running at it's max? Immeasurably small.
Rush Limbaugh remembers the days of the fairness doctrine. There are a handful of politicians who think it should make a comeback. I'm not a big fan of Mr. Limbaugh's but in his defense if you read what has been said by supporters of the Fairness Doctrine it would send shivers up your spine:
The shooting is cause for the country to rethink parameters on free speech, Clyburn said from his office, just blocks from the South Carolina Statehouse. He wants standards put in place to guarantee balanced media coverage with a reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, in addition to calling on elected officials and media pundits to use 'better judgment.'
Most people, left or right would recoil whenever a politician starts talking about a need to rethink the "parameters of free speech."
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Hey! That's not fair. Google's lobbyist got something changed at the last minute. So it was four people.
You have the right idea but appear to be a little foggy on the details. Here is how it would work:
As the broadcast TV business begins to wither Comcast can begin to remove channels from its lineup. With the bandwidth saved from these deleted channels it can create a private intranet with > 1 GB of bandwidth. This network will be limited only to the last mile and not access the public Internet. For access to the Internet customers will continue to use their current connection.
Comcast can then use the private Intranet and all of this dedicated bandwidth for its own streaming service. If another service like Netflix or Hulu wish to have access to this domain then Comcast can require them to rent space in their headends for streaming servers. This way the content will not be streamed from the Internet but only through Comcast's private network subverting the net neutrality regulations.
There is no what it "might do" it is what they have been actively doing, and trying to get money out of...Also there is nothing in this that allows the NSA to get taps on it.
While NN provides protection against overt violations such as outright blocking or throttling of competing interests this hasn't been the vehicle used. There isn't some machine at the ISP explicitly designed to slow down or block all traffic to somewhere the ISPs dislike...it is all much more subtle than that. Hey look x victim interconnects with y,w and k so we will pref z,o and p to keep links g,h,i,j saturated. Then we will claim it isn't "our fault" your *** is slow.
I still believe the only solution that at all stands any chance of working are focused efforts to restore a competitive market. Break up monopolies, FRAND access to last mile, erasing anti-competitive legislation, etc.
Also there is nothing in this that allows the NSA to get taps on it.
I will assume you have carefully read all 317 pages which is great. I'm embarrassed to say I can't even find the text.
You are talking about different things... I am mostly talking about net capacity, not throughput. There is no limitation to the net capacity of bandwidth.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
They can't do anything without finding a new way to tack a fucking fee on things.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
no, we have two sets of corporate parties that take money and work for diffrent lobbying groups. At the moment they are both more than happy enough to take swipes at eachother's money source and nothing else. But its entirely unfair to say either party is more "capitalist" than the other. Social issues sure, the republicans in general are slightly more socially conservative, but that is slowly changing, as both parties are moving away from token images they pretend to care about to simply offering protection from "the other".
And they don't want to run fiber because it's it won't make them any more money. You're already paying all you're going to pay under the unlimited model. Now imagine you paid for what you consumed, you think they'd let their income potential be capped by antique equipment? If electricity was an "unlimited per month" model, would there be incentive to make sure that I have near 100% uptime with all the electrical capacity I can imagine using, even way out in the rural area where I live? Or would they want to just make sure I have enough to not cancel my service altogether?
There's a cost for the "pipe", but how much does the "water" cost? If the cost is negligible, than it makes more sense to pay for the size of the pipe & not the amount of water flowing through it. In some places it may make sense, others not so much. (I used to be in a place that did not charge for the amount of water I used) Also I pay for a connection to my TV provider, not by how much I use (disregarding ppv/etc). Not saying pay-per-bit is good/bad...
ditto about the land line metering. At one time I had a choice of even metered local service (could save a few cents over unlimited local).
What's a land line? And my dad says that's how the used to work for long distance calls.
Then they can do what some electric companies do. Offer a discount to consumers with a router that throttles the connection during peak demand and let them suck up all the data they want when consumption is low. I'm pretty sure that's a broad-stroke version of the model DirecWay currently uses for their satellite internet service. The FAP throttles you during the day and you get a window of a few hours in the early morning when the shackles are lifted and you can download without penalty.
I'm going to assume here that was after 1982, when AT&T was broken up. Before that time there was only measured service (folks of a certain age will remember the Kafkaesque hell that was "message units". Unlimited local calling is a recent invention, and had the unfortunate timing to be introduced about the same time as the Hayes modem.
Mission: To provide products that consume time and energy as entertainingly as permitted by the laws of thermodynamics.
You're right. At my place in Florida I can choose between 8 different companies to buy from, I currently buy from WREC which is a coop. So can my sister in Alberta there are 5 different companies, she currently buys from the local coal mine which charges 3c/kwh less than anyone else in the province. I live in Ontario, so I have one choice and they tell me how "great and cheap" it is.
Om, nomnomnom...
Also my comment isn't about if they are good or bad, just that the process that made them certainly was in no way open.
It was never claimed to be. The process to determine *whether* to act is supposedly open. The results of the decision are supposedly open. The actual decision making process, and intermediate work product was *never* open. Who claimed that all FCC meetings and processes are open?
Learn to love Alaska
Yes, and the various companies will likely sue and claim Title II doesn't apply. To that I say "good luck", because it's pretty clear to me (although IANAL) that they're common carriers, not information services.
AOL and Compuserve were information services. They provided something more than just a pipe. My ISP today does nothing of the sort, and is functionally indistinguishable from any other ISP other than the number I call for tech support when it goes down. Even better, some of the telecom companies have been playing fast and loose, classifying some of their buildouts as Title II in order to take advantage of financial benefits from the Government, even while they claim they don't have to play by those rules.
So then WHY IS RESPONSE TO PUBLIC COMMENT BEING KEPT SECRET? That wasn't a rhetorical question.
Nor was the inquiry as to what actual effect this would have now, except that the FCC gets more power to control the Internet, something we've fought long and hard AGAINST in the past?
Wonder what the public key field is for?
There's a cost for the "pipe", but how much does the "water" cost? If the cost is negligible, than it makes more sense to pay for the size of the pipe & not the amount of water flowing through it.
That model does make sense for the internet and very few people argue with pricing broke down by speed tiers. It breaks down when people expect that they can utilize 100% of their pipe 100% of the time. In my area Time Warner sells 50mbit/s connections and has eight DOCSIS channels on their coax plant. At ~42mbit/s per channel that's a maximum of 336mbit/s shared amongst all users on a particular node. Some simple division will reveal that less than seven users subscribing to the highest speed tier are enough to completely saturate that pipe. You can translate this into your water analogy easily enough by observing what happens to your water pressure when the fire department decides to flush the hydrants in your neighborhood.
Caps really aren't the best way to manage this "problem" because they ignore the actual limiting factor of bitrate. 95th percentile billing would make more sense but good luck explaining that to the masses.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
300+ pages of justification, like Eric Holder's secret justification on how it's constitutional to shoot down unarmed American citizens without any charge or trial.
They voted on the entire thing, Title II the FCC an enormous amount of power over whatever system it covers (and it does not include the Internet imo - If the FCC is right, can you name any company that'll fall under the "information service" label, now? No?), and at least one of the FCC commissioners who wants to publish the rules seems to disagree with that assertion anyways.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
And yet no one related to the debate on anything to do with the internet is even remotely talking about bringing back the Fairness Doctrine, except for the right-wing demagogues who are trying to conflate it with "Net Neutrality" in the minds of their adherents, because it benefits them (and their corporate buddies) for people to think Obama and the FCC want to impose that kind of thing. It's scaremongering, and it's dishonest.
And while one or two may talk about it, the key word here is " a handful". I've heard politicians propose we should bring back the Draft, but do you think it has even a snowball's chance in hell of passing anytime soon? There's a majority of support for legalizing marijuana, among the overall US population, but even that's still not gotten through yet.
There is in fact a limit to how much bandwidth you have, it might seem like a fiber optic cable should have infinite bandwidth, but it doesn't. I never really thought about why there would be a limit but I just always remember thinking there must be something restricting the amount of bandwidth you have between two points, otherwise why wouldn't everyone have at least gigabit to their homes? Not only is there a technological limit (which was the first limit I learned about many years ago) due to having to process and handle the large amount of data coming in over the pipe, there's also a physical limit.
Basically, there's a limit to how short a pulse you can send down fiber optic cable, and the shorter you can make those pulses the more bandwidth you have. According to the video, the shortest pulse width is around 1 femtosecond which gives a maximum total bandwidth over fiber optic cable of 125TB/sec. While a very large number, it's certainly not infinite.
Plus, your posts seem to point out that you feel the costs to increase maximum theoretical bandwidth are trivial. It's not cheap supporting a hundred fiber connected gigabit devices, let alone the millions an ISP would need to support to give ever customer guaranteed gigabit bandwidth. It's not just the gigabit links that cost money, it's also the equipment required for the uplinks. You would need to be able to handle all of the traffic going back up to the tier 1 network, which is going to require a lot more than just a couple 1 gig GBICs. While I feel that plenty of ISPs are holding off upgrading their equipment since they can just continue charging their customers high fees for low speeds, I also don't think it would be feasible for any of them to start providing gigabit speed to everyone. Even 100 mbit is extremely cost prohibitive and not worth most ISPs resources. There are plenty that will provide guaranteed asynchronous bandwidth but they have a very small target market.
The commenter who replied to you pretty much pointed out where you're wrong, so I'm not gonna waste my time. I'll add one bit that he missed, though; the relevant 8 pages are a subset of Title II's 33 pages. Have a nice day.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
When the kiddies demonstrate they can't play nice on their own, the parents usually end up getting involved and start laying down the rules. The more intelligent ones realize this early on and self-adjust their behavior accordingly so they retain some say so in how their day to day activities are governed. It allows them a bit more freedom.
:|
It's interesting the corporate interests can't see past their quarterly profit statements to figure out that THEY are the reason broadband in this country is about as pathetic as it gets. Not a f*cking clue on their end. Then again, poster children never realize that they're poster children I guess
Personally, I hope they break the companies up. Folks who control the backbone shouldn't be in the content business and vice versa. Too many moral and ethical issues for the average US company to deal with correctly. ( Why offer a superior product when I can just degrade a competitors instead ? )
If my bill for internet service goes up and the service goes down, I'm coming back here and rip all of you a new one.
This is a government power grab, pure and simple. Mark my words - you will regret it.
Ah, the simple-minded. Aren't they precious? And so easily led.
Remember, if you like your internet, you can keep it. Period.
*shrug*, Rush makes his living by being a showman. I don't really care for the show, though as a human being I have respect for anyone that can laugh at himself, which Rush does (he has played himself on Family Guy, amongst other things), so there's that. If you're looking for an in-depth and impartial analysis of the issues you're probably not tuning into The Rush Limbaugh Show. Conservatives see a slippery slope here to further regulation. I don't entirely discount that argument and it's hard to escape the fact that the internet became what it is today by being unregulated and free of top-down mandates that impede innovation.
I'm generally supportive of what the FCC is trying to accomplish but I think the means they're using is questionable at best. They're also going after hypothetical impediments to innovation (the oft-discussed fast lane hasn't actually happened) while ignoring real threats (data caps) to innovation. Frankly I'd rather see them in the business of regulating tariffs than telling the ISPs how to run their networks (*), because I view data caps as a far more serious threat to internet video (the "killer app" that started this whole conversation) than a fast line that has yet to come to fruition.
(*) Here's a hypothetical for you: Is it "reasonable network management" to prioritize one's voice service over other applications? Keep in mind that circuit switched voice is fast becoming a thing of the past, on both wireless and wireline. On the wireline side you've got the cable company's VoIP service running on the same DOCSIS node as your neighbor's bittorrent download. On wireless you've got VoLTE replacing circuit switched voice, so voice is just another data application there as well, one that's competing for bandwidth on an increasingly congested wireless data network.
If the answer is "Yes" then you've advantaged Time Warner/Verizon/et. al's voice product over Skype and similar offerings. If the answer is "No" then you're placing phone calls at the same "best effort" level as your neighbor's porn addiction.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The ruling by the FCC http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-adopts-strong-sustainable-rules-protect-open-internet doesn't classify "the Internet" as a Title II common carrier under the Communications Act. It re-classifies "broadband Internet access service" as a telecommunications service under Title II (i.e., as a common carrier). If Comcast or Verizon builds their own walled garden service through which they do not provide a broadband Internet access service, then this particular ruling would not apply to that service. But if they provide high-speed transit for Internet traffic between their customers and the Internet, then this service must operate as a common carrier under the new rules.
Common carriers exist in all transport industries, including pipelines, trucking, busing, shipping, public airlines, public railroads, etc. The fact that they are a "common carrier" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier has many legal ramifications, including the fact that they are regulated, and regulations typically say that they cannot discriminate (refuse service) in certain ways. For instance, the FCC has determined that the common carriers that are broadband Internet access services shouldn't be discriminating based on the origin of traffic (e.g., Verizon shouldn't be treating NetFlix traffic any differently than Verizon's own video streaming service traffic). It is the service they provide that makes them a common carrier, not their infrastructure.
FedEx, for example, as a shipping company is a common carrier. They use a lot of their own infrastructure, and they may even use the USPS for last mile delivery. But the package delivery service they provide is a common carrier service. They provide different classes of service, but within a given class they can't prioritize one customer's packages over another's. Southwest Airlines is a common carrier. They use their own planes and personnel to provide transportation services to the public. The public may use their own vehicles to get to the airport, and they may use a private car service on the far end to get to their hotel, but the portion of their trip that goes on Southwest Airlines planes is provided by a common carrier service. You can find many more examples of common carriers using Google.
Flock back to cable TV... heh. My lack of TV watching has nothing to do with internet as an alternative but they can keep deluding themselves.
A Republican FCC chair confirmed that the document that has been voted on today will not be made public until he decides to submit his edits.
FTFY
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
No, anyone that contradicts Fox News is a Socialist / Communist. Get your extreme ends of the spectrum correct.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
The problem is not that "Right-of-way access is limited" as much as that it has been historically allocated very inefficiently. Bury conduit and let multiple providers lease conduit through which to blow their fiber or copper.
The scarcity of radio spectrum would not result in a single radio broadcast corporation monopolizing the spectrum.
Apparently you've never lived in a city whose FM radio band was dominated by Clear Channel. Or when all four major U.S. cellular carriers raised their SMS pricing from 10 cents to send and 10 cents to receive to 20 cents to send and 20 cents to receive, in near lockstep.
The two Republican chair asked for the regulation to be made public, which was denied.
elect Obama for a 3rd time cuz he going get you a Obama smart phone and dat interwebs.
Cuz no ones gots time fo dat slow-azz dialup. Now I gots to go feedz my foe kidz...where'd I leave da EBT ats...
My DL speeds have been around 15 mps for years and I don't notice any delays on any particular websites I visit.
My download speeds just got up to 6 Mbps, sometimes, when the sun is shining. Pacific Bell promised to have all of California covered by 2000. SBC made similar promises, so has AT&T. We paid for this coverage to happen, and it hasn't happened. It's nice for you that you've got good coverage, but I don't really give a good goddamn what you've got.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It was not an objection, it was a request for clarification.. Here is the snip it you conveniently left out:
What? The very snip you just pasted says that they wanted clarification and limitation of scope. They're objecting to the scope, and want it clarified.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That's why I added "the cable ISPs hope." Of course, one of their other tactics is to price Internet Only so that it is more than Internet+TV. This way, to save money, you need to subscribe to cable TV. Then either you'll be more likely to watch cable TV since you already have it or, at the very least, you'll count as a "cable tv subscriber" instead of as a cord cutter. (The fact that pricing it this way means they are abusing their ISP monopoly to beat the TV service competition will hopefully mean that this will be stopped, but I won't be holding my breath.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
As for why they're still not public: The two republican commisioners are refusing to submit their final edits, which have to be included in the release. They're essentially misusing formalities in order to drag their feet.
http://www.reddit.com/r/news/c...
But what do I know.
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
I'm not affected, I know of nobody who is affected.
This is a power grab pure and simple and all you retards fell for it.
Liberty.
You might be right that this is a loaded Trojan horse.
However, I have no problem with what is on the surface. These are good ideas -- the internet is very much deserving "public utility" status. I'm not worried about fast lanes, I'm worried about intentionally making competition-owned services slower. The internet is a freaking power outlet, it should not matter what brand of hair dryer I plug in. If I need more power, I buy more power (bandwidth). But it doesn't matter what I am using it for.
The thing is we're worried about what comcast "might" do. And you're worried about what the NSA/government "might" do. Well maybe we're both right, did that ever occur to you? Maybe the government wants to overreach, to spy on your ebay shopping and snoop on your email. Maybe private industry wants insert extra ads while I web surf, or slow down Skype so that I am more likely to use iMessage, or make Amazon faster than Netflix in return for a little cash on the side. or whatever. Lots of maybe here.
We have to attack on both fronts. Neither party is trustworthy here.
If you honestly don't believe that the EFF objects to the general conduct rule, I guess we'll just have to disagree. I suspect you're being disingenuous, however.
It was not an objection, it was a request for clarification.. Here is the snip it you conveniently left out:
No question that the EFF is happy overall (after all, they've been fighting for net neutrality for years). (And see my other posts on this article if you care about what else I've said.)
What I'm objecting to--or at least curious about--is why so many posts here are so rabidly partisan and specifically attacking Fox News. I must have missed the memo that Fox News was responsible for anyone and everyone who objects to the FCC's net neutrality rules. Even the EFF objects to parts of the rules and has complained about the FCC's lack of transparency. Are they too just lackeys of Fox News for uncritically objecting to the FCC's rules?
It is virtually certain that the contract Netflix signed with Verizon includes a provision specifically covering the eventuality of net neutrality regulations being passed. Both those companies know what they're doing, would have realized the possibility, and would have wanted to negotiate explicit terms for it rather than leave them to litigation.
The opinions stated herein do not necessarily represent those of anybody at all. Deal with it.
not having been released yet is not the same thing as being kept secret...
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Which matters not as there is more money to be spent in the US to cover the larger amount of people. The longer you keep saying "but the US is so biiiig!" the longer the US's infrastructure will be an abject joke.
"Connect" is not a noun, fyi.
That might have been the original meaning, but the meaning of words changes over time.
"Europe" did nothing of the sort, but don't let that get in the way of a good rant.
Exactly, but the AC wants you to pay that flat fee (like you currently do for internet or phone) PLUS a "per MB" charge on top of it. I was pointing out that it should be either / or, not both (which is double charging).
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
I kind of picked that up.... my point is that a land-line telephone doesn't ordinarily have any "per use' charges in addition to the flat rate unless you are making long-distance calls.... and even then, at least for residential lines, you can often get plans that allow unlimited long distance at a rate that is quite attractive if one is in the position of making many of those calls in a month.
So sure... while there's precedent for utilities being metered from water, power, and gas... there's also no lack of precedent for utilities being flat-rate, such as telephone... or cable, for that matter.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
In 1996, there was competition in Internet Service, because the ISPs didn't own the local loop; the local loop was owned by a party that was, at the time, disinterested in our transaction: they didn't care if I used Acme, Apex, Brandex or Joe Schmoe for my ISP. Hell, they didn't care if I even had an ISP at all.
By 2000, broadband connections had rolled out. They were irrevocably tied to a given ISP, and that ISP was therefore able to put all but the most resilient of dialup ISPs out of business. It would have been better if they offered connectivity, like the telco before them, and let us pick our ISP, especially if we could now, as then, do it on a whim by choosing a different number to dial.
I don't expect ever to get back to that level of flexibility, but I think the current clusterfuck monopoly is bullshit. Don't cry to me about the plight of the small ISP: you aren't available to me. I have a choice between massive corporation A or massive corporation B, and I'm luckier than most Americans to have that.
www.wavefront-av.com
Bandwidth is absolutely a physical thing. There is a physical hard limit on bits per second of information transmitted through any medium. There is also a significantly tighter (though growing) technological limit on our ability to transmit, route, and receive those bits in the physical transmission media we currently employ.
Saying "transmitting a lot ... data uses nothing" is ridiculous. It uses part of the limited supply of bandwidth. This bandwidth can be expanded by installing more transmission media (cable, fiber, microwave antennas, network switches, etc.) wherever the bottleneck happens to be, but that costs money too, and companies won't do it unless they expect to be able to capitalize on the increased capacity.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
These things (area, population etc) are numbers. They can be manipulated. Added, subtracted, multiplied and divided would be a good place for you to start.
Until you realize that you are wrong, the US is not like Japan and Europe, you will continue to be an abject joke.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Perhaps... thus turning a lack of capacity into a profit center for the ISP. They're bad enough at having enough capacity as it is, without giving them a profit incentive to make their connections as bad as possible.
99% of consumer advocacy over this was about smooth streaming. If you have evidence to show otherwise, please share it.
http://www.theamericanconserva...
Or is that source too liberal for you?
Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. Blue states generate the revenue and the red states live off of that welfare.
http://www.politifact.com/trut...
The down side, you have to live in Salt Lake City area. :(
I, for one, welcome our new FCC overlords.
I, for one, welcome our new NSA overlords.
FTFY. There IS no anonymity on the Internet. And if you still believe that there is, you are an idiot, my friend.
Bullshit. Electrons are generated using power and gas. So, therefore, are also limited. Wow. Complete fail on your part.
And exactly how much do you suspect that upgraded equipment is going to cost? How much are you, as a consumer, willing to pay to get that upgrade? Because all I hear is people bitching about how expensive everything already is... Do you have any idea at all how much this kind of equipment costs???
Slippery slope is only a fallacy until it ain't.