Verizon Posts Message In Morse Code To Mock FCC's Net Neutrality Ruling

HughPickens.com writes: Chris Matyszczyk reports at Cnet that Verizon has posted a message to the FCC titled: FCC's 'Throwback Thursday' Move Imposes 1930s Rules on the Internet" written in Morse code. The first line of the release dated February 26, 1934 in old typewriter font (PDF) reads: "Today (Feb.26) the Federal Communications Commission approved an order urged by President Obama that imposes rules on broadband Internet services that were written in the era of the steam locomotive and the telegraph." The Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 along party lines in favor of new Internet service rules that prohibit blocking, slowing or prioritizing traffic. The rules, which have not yet been released, are opposed by cable and telephone companies that fear it will curb Internet growth and stifle payback on network investment. "It isn't a surprise that Verizon is a touch against Thursday's order. In 2012, it insisted that the very idea of Net neutrality squished its First and Fifth Amendment right," writes Matyszczyk. "I wonder, though, who will be attracted by this open mockery. Might this be a sign that Verizon doesn't think the fight is over at all?"

Comments

Verizon's 'Throwback Thursday' move...

[by (1706743)]

...imposes 2000s (1990s?) Internet access speed!

Re:Verizon's 'Throwback Thursday' move...

[Austerity Empowers]

To be fair, they do that anyway.

Re:Verizon's 'Throwback Thursday' move...

[Darinbob]

640 kilobit is enough for anyone!

fees

[Anonymous Coward]

first complaint ive seen. they want to leave the average user with turtle slow speeds while charging out the ass for people and companies who can afford it. companies have gone from being reasonable 150yrs ago to outright blatant greed, and youre ridiculed if you speak out against it. fuck capitalism.

Re:fees

[Anonymous Coward]

So don't use Verizon...

No can do. Verizon is the only option in my town.

Re:fees

[Jane Q. Public]

fuck capitalism.

It has nothing to do with capitalism. It has everything to do with unregulated corporate greed. They are NOT the same things. The same kind of greed was seen very prominently in countries that called themselves Socialist and even Communist. So don't blame "capitalism" for it. It's cronyism, plain and simple.

And this is almost laughably wrong:

The rules, which have not yet been released, are opposed by cable and telephone companies that fear it will curb Internet growth and stifle payback on network investment.

I call BS. They don't "fear" it will do anything of the kind. What they fear is that it will put a stop to their monopolistic control, and monopolistic prices, and end their ability to pocket tax money given them for infrastructure.

I mean this literally: you can hardly believe a word they say anymore.

Re:fees

[Austerity Empowers]

This is great advice, where were you when they imposed emissions controls on cars!

People were like: "I'm tired of all the dirt in the air"
You could have been like: "So don't use air..." ...and now we could be swimming through NY's atmosphere!

Re:fees

[ShanghaiBill]

companies have gone from being reasonable 150yrs ago ...

Let's not get carried away with false nostalgia. 150 years ago was the era of robber barons that make Verizon and Comcast look like pussycats.

Re:fees

[CrimsonAvenger]

I want Gigabit symmetrical with 1 TB of transfer for $50/mo.. This is absolutely 100% possible with current technology.

Then why don't you start a company that offers that service?

If you can do it profitably, you'll have investors falling all over themselves to give you money, since pretty much everyone will want your service....

Re:fees

[Defenestrar]

Wow - a limited monopoly for a service necessary for modern life like telephone, power, water, and sewer? Sounds like a public utility to me.

Re:fees

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an average user and I pay about $55/month for 60 megabits per second and no data cap. Not exactly turtle speed is it?

I pay $55/month for 6 megabits per second, no cap.

You must want super high speed internet for a few bucks a month. It ain't gonna happen. In fact, now it may be harder for you to get that bargain. Happy?

No, I want what you have and there's no reason to be an asshole about it.

Re:fees

[ichthus]

Where is your town? I believe there are some places in the US where only one broadband provider is available, but I'm not privy to any of them. I live in a rural part of Utah, and there are no less than four options available to me (Comcast, Century Link, and a couple of WISPs). I currently get ~60 Mb up/down for $45/mo with my WISP.

Re:fees

[nomel]

You're lucky. I'm have one option (comcast in silicon valley) of $79 for 20meg down/1meg up.

We can *just* do hd streaming for amazon/netflix videos. Some nights, it's too slow and we buffer every once and a while.

Re:fees

[xaxa]

I want Gigabit symmetrical with 1 TB of transfer for $50/mo.. This is absolutely 100% possible with current technology.

Then why don't you start a company that offers that service?

Here's an example (British, and £50/month, but £1 = $1 is pretty normal for technology...)

They're only installing into apartment buildings at the moment, and I think they ask the building owner to subsidise the installation, but I don't doubt it increases the rental value.

Re:fees

[sabri]

Verizon is the only option in my town.

This is the real problem.

So-called "Net Neutrality" is a nothing but a bandage on a bullet wound, for two main reasons.

First of all, most internet users in the US of A have little choice between carriers. It's either cable, dsl or satellite. The cable market will be given to company A, and if lucky, company B for dsl. It is virtually impossible to start a new ISP under current regulations. This means that there is little to no incentive for incumbent operators to upgrade their networks.

In an ideal world, networks and subscriber access have sufficient bandwidth to accommodate all users. Yes, consumer cable/DSL will be oversubscribed a bit, but that will leave plenty of bandwidth for regular services, assuming a decent operator network. This is the real problem of the U.S. internet access market.

The second reason why I'm strongly against these regulations is that the government should keep its busy nose out of private companies' networks. If build a network, it is up to me to operate it the way I want to. If a subscriber does not like the way I operate my network, they are (should be) free to go elsewhere. Which is the part that is broken in the U.S.

So, what the FCC should really focus on is not so much the whining of Netflix regarding available ports on public peering exchanges, but to open up the broadband market to more competition. Works in Europe, works in Asia, works in Canada. Does not work in Mother Russia, for obvious reasons (in Russia, KGB^H^H^H internet connects to you).

In short, because the FCC is so defunct that they're unable to regulate a healthy competitive market, they force their big fat butt on the seat of the CEOs of current companies and tell them how to operate their networks.

Re:fees

[RightwingNutjob]

No dude. They don't want to end up in court for running a high speed line for a paying customer who wants equipment on both ends connected to the public internet but only their traffic allowed on the pipe.

Re:fees

[Archangel Michael]

No, it isn't a public utility. It is a "franchise agreement" between the Local Municipality and the Corporation. The fact that this is the way things have always been done doesn't mean it has to continue this way.

I propose that instead, we bring FIBER to a COLO, from where the citizens can CHOOSE (market forces) the options and features they desire from the multitude of companies that offer these services.

BY moving the issue of "last mile" ... to a COLO rather than neighborhood corner, it solves all sorts of market issues.

Re:fees

[easyTree]

"Hardly" is going too far. Why not just come out and say it - not a single word of truth is printed unless it benefits someone with power.

Re:fees

[Archangel Michael]

Actually, it has to do with Franchise agreements between _______ cable and the local municipalities, which is NOT Capitalism, but some bad version of utility.

Bring me fiber via local Municipality, and let me choose which set of services I can get, from whatever company that wants to offer for whatever price the market will bear. Municipal owned COLO that gives market access to any company that wants it.

Re:fees

[jythie]

This is not far off how it used to be. Years back Verizon DSL was covered under Title II. They provided the lines, but you could choose any one of dozens of ISPs to actually buy your service from. It was wonderful.

Re:fees

[Archangel Michael]

I could do it, if I had access to the Telco rights of way that were "franchised" away to the local Cable monopolies during the early part of the 80s. We are 35 years later, and haven't improved the delivery model.

Re:fees

[easyTree]

Your wikipedia link reads like a description of the current situation.

Re:fees

[jythie]

I take it you did not live in one of the regions that had DSL covered under Title II? The number of options and price ranges were far wider than today since Verizon was required to lease its lines, allowing 3rd parties to actually exist. When the FCC pulled them off the regulation, competition and options vanished almost overnight.

Re:fees

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

I'm in Tulsa, OK. I live in a gated apartment building, and we only have access to AT&T. There is no coax in the entire complex, the management refuses to acknowledge this is illegal...even though I took them a print-out of the FCC's ruling from 2007 against these exclusivity contracts. I even offered to run cable from the front office back to my building for free if they would just get a run to the front office...they just look at me blankly like I'm talking in a foreign language. Even more ironic is right across the street is our state's first "local CLEC" that has fiber AND my apartment complex is spending millions on various cosmetic upgrades,..we're moving soon, and this is the major reason. DSL barely has enough up to support my job; with my work responsibilities increasing soon it won't be enough to have a max of 180k up. I've already had to turn down a couple of high-prestige projects for some remote stuff because of this.

I'm paying $85 a month to get a "business class" DSL, just so I can get around the "bandwidth caps" AT&T has imposed on it's consumer accounts. If I hadn't, my bill would average $400-$800 a month just from usage. Some might say this is my apartment's fault; but I have been told b y management here that just recently several AT&T drones have come in and flat-out lied to to them about "future upgrades" that don't even exist to get better speeds.

Re:fees

[amiga3D]

And that's the real issue. These dickheads have a virtual monopoly and they joke about competition. Like there really is some. I hope the person at Verizon that wrote that snide shit has his asshole grow shut. The only company that treats it's customers worse than Verizon is AT&T. And it's not much difference on the shitty scale.

Re:fees

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that's the problem. Does the FCC actually have any power to do anything about that problem? Because if not, you should go yell at Congress for not fixing the problem and leaving it to the FCC to use what power they do have to try to mitigate the symptoms.

Re:fees

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

Sure, I'd agree IF the telco's hadn't taken BILLIONS of tax-payer money to do "upgrades". Instead they took that money and gave it to their lobbyists to fight against having to use that money for that. If they didn't want the FCC in their business, they shouldn't have accepted taxpayer money and then commit fraud with it.

Re:fees

[jjhall]

It depends on your definition of a broadband provider is. In my area, outside of Boise, ID, we have a hand full of choices by a very loose definition. However when it comes down to it, there is only one, maybe two.

CableOne - Best option if you can get it. $60/mo for 30x2. Fast speeds (up to 75x5,) great service (especially with "business" plan) and decent coverage area in town. No enforced data caps on business plans, rate limits when caps exceeded for residential plans.

Century Link DSL - Second best choice, though speeds are nowhere near cable (most areas still get 1.5-7x768 up. A few select areas can get 40x5.) They are just as expensive as cable for the lowest speeds if you don't "bundle" with landline service. Typical telco customer service experience.

Digis - $40/mo for 5/1 speed. Wireless service, so not as stable as wired service.

Safelink - Wireless $25/mo for 1M/256 service, 10 GB limit. $100/mo for 15x2 service, "no limit."

Speedyquick - Wireless $40/mo for 1x1 service, "premium" account for $75/mo 4x1 service.

If you take the FCC's new definition of broadband internet (25x4 minimum,) CableOne is the only option with their most expensive plan unless you happen to live in one of the small areas here that qualify for CenturyLink's 40x5 service. Even if you relax that definition a bit and go to 10x1, you're still limited to CableOne, some CenturyLink areas, and SafeLink's $100/mo plan.

Re:fees

[nehumanuscrede]

" If build a network, it is up to me to operate it the way I want to "

If you built a network using your own finances, then I say absolutely.

OTOH, if you take government subsidies ( The Universal Service Fund I think ) to help you build your network / infrastructure out with the conditions / goals of the USF, then you don't get to operate it completely by your own rules.

Eg:

Promote the availability of quality services at just, reasonable and affordable rates for all consumers
Increase nationwide access to advanced telecommunications services
Advance the availability of such services to all consumers, including those in low income, rural, insular, and high cost areas, at rates that are reasonably comparable to those charged in urban areas
Increase access to telecommunications and advanced services in schools, libraries and rural health care facilities
Provide equitable and non-discriminatory contributions from all providers of telecommunications services to the fund supporting universal service programs

Pay close attention to number three above. THIS scares the shit out of the big players who are in the broadband game. Currently they cherry pick where they build out their networks based on projected profit returns. They classify under Title II, they may lose that privilege.

That terrifies them as it eats deep into their already absurd profits.

Re:fees

[TheGratefulNet]

to show how much variation there is, I am also in the bay area and I have a year of 'intro deal' pricing where its less than $50 for 100meg down and 10meg up. no shit, either; I do get those speeds.

well, one caveat. I run openvpn almost 7x24 and this pisses comcast off, even though they won't ever say it. I get disconnected almost every hour on the hour. I work around it with my own form of creative network mgmt (...) and I'm annoyed by them, but its not stopping me.

note, when I don't run my vpn, I don't see the disconnects coming. strange, huh?

anyway, when the intro 12mo deal is over, I'll have to find some other service. there isn't much else to pick from! I once had clear.com (clearwire) - a semi-4g usb 'mifi' dongle that would give me acceptable connectivity without any house wiring. when I was short-term renting, that did the trick. neat little dongle, too. maybe I'll look into that again.

I just need to leave comcast (when my year is up) for 3mos, then I can reset the clock, get a new intro pkg and start again, but this time it probably will only be a 6mo special.

if you don't play these games, you get stuck for over $100/mo!

THIS is why comcast needs to be bitchslapped. and the others, too, but in my area, comcast is the only choice you get.

silicon valley - where we pretty much DID invent the internet - and we have a single vendor to pick from. sigh ;(

Re:fees

[xevioso]

Which is why I moved away from Tulsa.

Re:fees

[xevioso]

Why should we believe you then?

Re:fees

[jader3rd]

It has nothing to do with capitalism. It has everything to do with unregulated corporate greed. They are NOT the same things. The same kind of greed was seen very prominently in countries that called themselves Socialist and even Communist. So don't blame "capitalism" for it. It's cronyism, plain and simple.

That's actually everything to do with capitalism.

Your ignorance of history and economic systems is ... overwhelming.

If we're going to define capitalism as what was laid out by Adam Smith in On the Wealth of Nations (generally considered to be the founding document of capitalism), it certainly didn't praise corporate greed. Adam Smith takes a lot of time to bash on corporations, and how they need to be regulated. Not just that they need to be regulated, but exactly the manner in which they need to be.

Re:fees

[gurps_npc]

If your description was accurate, I (and every one else would agree with you But unfortunately you are LYING about what Verizon etc. are doing.

Verizon is not demanding the right to charge you more for faster speed.

They are demanding the right to IGNORE the contract they made with you to provide X speed whenever the people you ask content for refuse to pay them for X speed.

Which is total Bullshit. They can't charge me for X speed and then turn around and say "Sorry, but that speed only applies to other people who pay us as well."

NO. That is fraud on their part. They are trying to use hidden clauses in the contract with their customers to do a bait and switch - advertising (and charging) for 60 megabits a second , then go around and give you only 30 megabits/second.

Re:fees

[TapeCutter]

The FCC made the right call in the US, they upheld the long established status-quo of the international market, but it's a hollow victory if you only have one ISP to choose from. The decision is kind of a surprise to me given the head of the FCC was an influential telco lobbyist prior to his appointment. In this case it seems to me the FCC are doing their job by telling telco's what to do, rather than the other way around (as one would expect with such blatantly insestious oversight).

Re:fees

[ShanghaiBill]

Your wikipedia link reads like a description of the current situation.

Neither Comcast nor Verizon has opened fire on their opponents with live ammunition, so I don't think so.

Re:fees

[TapeCutter]

Why didn't you just write "You're wrong, fuckface"? - It's much clearer yet equally vacuous.

Re:fees

[ganjadude]

you would be shocked to find out that there is a good chance that century link is actually comcast as far as 99% of things are concerned.

Re:fees

[quist]

I fail to understand just why so many here want federal solutions to their local market problem, which greatly stems from your local gov't (PUCo and such)

Re:fees

[turkeyfish]

Your comment goes to show just how far the US has fallen by accepting the ISP's line that if they are not regulated, we will get better service and faster high speed roll out. Friends of my family in Japan pay about $30 per month for 100 GB/sec speeds (yes that is 100 GibaBits/second). I've heard the Koreans are putting government funds to ensure everyone in the country is up and running at 100 GB/sec for about $10/month.

Why can the US no longer compete?

What are we as consumers going to do about it?

Re:fees

[WarSpiteX]

I agree with the original poster and I know exactly what capitalism is. The idea that capitalism can exist in a vacuum of rules will give you something close to HK style capitalism which in the end is counter productive because it makes the opportunity costs too high for the small players

That's pretty much it.

Capitalism is unrestricted private enterprise, like seen during the Gilded Age of Rockefeller and Carnegie, where there are no rules. The moment you start regulating, limiting, or restricting financiers and industrialists, you are engaging in socialism.

Re:fees

[diamondmagic]

Well then by all means, make it a part of the contract at the time you take the money.

But you cannot retroactively say "Ha! You took taxpayer money last year, that makes you our little bitch!"

Re:fees

[Anonymous Coward]

Exclusive franchise agreements were made illegal by a 1992 Federal law. The issues are much more complex than that. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8066340

Re:fees

[melchoir55]

I want Gigabit symmetrical with 1 TB of transfer for $50/mo.. This is absolutely 100% possible with current technology.

Then why don't you start a company that offers that service?

If you can do it profitably, you'll have investors falling all over themselves to give you money, since pretty much everyone will want your service....

I would love to start an ISP. I have the resources to lay fiber through certain municipal areas that aren't well covered. It would take 10 years to start seeing profit, but after that, its almost 100% profit. I would do it in a heartbeat if I could.

But guess what? In our great "free" market that the telcos are trying to protect, I can't. You see, the telecos have convinced (see: bribed) many municipalities into signing deals which prevent any competitor from moving in. Google is attempting to deploy fiber nationwide, but they are forced to first spend insane amounts of money in lobbying themselves in order to be able to do it (they are forced to do other things as well, but this is a big problem). There are big truckloads of money that would dump into infrastructure in a heartbeat. The problem is that no one legally can because of how totally f-ed up the market has become with lobby $$$.

It isn't about money.
The market isn't free. It is a duopoly, and it is corrupt.

Re:fees

[whistlingtony]

You don't pay attention do you? You think the government gave them those subsidies without expectations? Ha!

Re:fees

[whistlingtony]

The FCC? :D

I kid. I kid. I see your point. Regulatory capture is a bad thing. The solution is NOT to get rid of regulation. That leads to monopolies. The solution is to get rid of the corruption.

Frankly, America barely votes and a large swath of the voters are fucking lemming morons. We have the corrupt government we deserve. Congress has a 14% approval rating. Most of them get reelected over and over. This isn't the government's fault. This is OUR god damned fault.

Re:fees

[Mantrid42]

That's great for places like England, but... Look, the United States is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to the US.

Re:fees

[KingMotley]

Have you thought about possibly setting up a VM in the cloud and just using your connection to control the VM? Seems like that may be a better choice for you, depending of course.

Re:fees

[j-turkey]

I fail to understand just why so many here want federal solutions to their local market problem, which greatly stems from your local gov't (PUCo and such)

There are a few reasons. First, a federal solution makes sense because the problem is systemic throughout the nation. Further, these abuses of local/regional monopolies are happening at the hands of a handful of national companies. Finally, I don't think that local PUC's are able to understand and manage the issue at hand.

Re:fees

[penix1]

The solution is to get rid of the corruption.

That will never happen since our whole society is based on personal greed. As long as people do it for their own pocket, the rest of society be damned, you will always have those that will do what it takes to get even more whether it is legal or not.

Re:fees

[sydbarrett74]

Yeah, I remember those days with Cavalier DSL here in Richmond, VA. There was a fault in my circuit (laid in the 1920's) and Cavalier placed a service request with Verizon, who sat on it for weeks before I finally had to get the State Corporation Commission involved. Wonderful times, indeed.

Re:fees

[7-Vodka]

Don't believe everything you read on wikipedia:

Tom Woods HS lecture

Re:fees

[penix1]

US==3.806,000 sq miles (9.857 million square km)
Japan==145,925 sq miles (377,944 square km)

Therein lies the problem with comparing the US to very small (in area) countries. Also, the population of Japan is far denser than the US which makes it more profitable to offer the higher speeds at a much lower cost. That is why you are seeing the better speeds as well as more choices in provider in metropolitan areas in the US. While us in the boonies may have at most 2 providers and they both suck.

Re:fees

[CaptainDork]

Add Comcast and Time Warner and I'm in.

Re:fees

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with the original poster and I know exactly what capitalism is. The idea that capitalism can exist in a vacuum of rules will give you something close to HK style capitalism which in the end is counter productive because it makes the opportunity costs too high for the small players

That's pretty much it.

Capitalism is unrestricted private enterprise, like seen during the Gilded Age of Rockefeller and Carnegie, where there are no rules. The moment you start regulating, limiting, or restricting financiers and industrialists, you are engaging in socialism.

WTF? I'm not sure where you got your views on socialism in an economic context but they aren't from texts on economics. Capitalism only means that trade and industry is privately owned and operated in a for profit way. Nowhere in the model or theory of capitalism is it stated that said trade and industry would be unregulated, and nowhere does it say that if it is regulated that it becomes socialism.

Gilded Age? Gilded for whom? The men you refer to were Robber Barons and not men to be looked up to. They polluted our lands and waters, worked men, women and children to death (literally) and fueled what would become the Great Depression with their boom and bust economic cycles that they controlled and were some of the only ones to profit from.

You seem to have bought way too much propaganda and ignored the lessons of history. It's ignorant, self-centered people like you that are the root cause of the economic and social woes the rest of us have to deal with on a daily basis.

Re:fees

[Livius]

It has nothing to do with capitalism.

It's monopoly capitalism. Not all capitalism is free-market capitalism. Technically they aren't lying.

Re:fees

[Jane Q. Public]

It's monopoly capitalism. Not all capitalism is free-market capitalism. Technically they aren't lying.

No, I stick by what I said above. GP blamed the problem on capitalism. But the very same problem occurs in other socioeconomic systems. Therefore it isn't caused by capitalism. The situation may be a variant of capitalism, but that's a different argument.

Re:fees

[Jane Q. Public]

Actually, it has to do with Franchise agreements between _______ cable and the local municipalities, which is NOT Capitalism, but some bad version of utility.

That's certainly part of the problem.

I'm all for free market. But unfortunately, we haven't had a competitive market for broadband on ANY level, not just the local level, for some time now. It might have started out locally, but that was a long time ago. The time to fix the local problem was then.

Now it's a problem throughout the country, with a small handful of companies controlling 80% of the United States. That's not a local problem anymore.

Re:fees

[Jane Q. Public]

If we're going to define capitalism as what was laid out by Adam Smith in On the Wealth of Nations (generally considered to be the founding document of capitalism), it certainly didn't praise corporate greed. Adam Smith takes a lot of time to bash on corporations, and how they need to be regulated. Not just that they need to be regulated, but exactly the manner in which they need to be.

Agreed. If we're discussing "Adam Smith free-market capitalism", Smith laid out the need for a solid body of antitrust law way back then. He recognized that free markets could lead toward monopoly, but wrote that this is where the government's role started: to enforce antitrust laws, which keep everybody on the same level playing field.

Since the government has hardly been enforcing the antitrust idea AT ALL, much less well, the logical conclusion is that this situation is not Adam Smith free-market capitalism. Which is what most people mean when they say "capitalism", regardless of technical details.

But it's very obvious that over the last couple of decades, government has thrown much of the antitrust baby out with the other regulatory bathwater, as it were. Not very long ago at all, a merger like Comcast and TWC would have been just laughed at, and never considered at all. For very good reasons.

BUT... I also want to say that GP here still missed the point. The person I was replying to implied that the problem was capitalism. My reply was that the very same problem (and I'll say here: even worse) occurs in other systems. Therefore the root problem can't be capitalism, per se. It must be something else. The obvious "something else" is cronyism. GP essentially just said "bullshit" while making no argument of his own.

Re:fees

[Jane Q. Public]

Why didn't you just write "You're wrong, fuckface"? - It's much clearer yet equally vacuous.

I didn't write that because the argument I did make has demonstrable history and facts on its side. I'm not in the habit of making vacuous comments, although we are all well aware your opinion has frequently been otherwise.

I don't claim to be perfect. I've made mistakes here and admitted them when they've been pointed out to me. But unless I made a recognizable blunder, I won't admit to being wrong unless someone actually shows that I am. Insults don't quite make it over that line.

Re:fees

[Z00L00K]

For now.

The ruling means that it may get easier for competition to arrive.

Re: fees

[Anonymous Coward]

Please shut up with this nonsense about the US being big. So what? The population isn't evenly distributed across the country's entire land area.

There are plenty of places with high local population density. In fact, if you look at a map indicating real density, you'd see why your argument is ultimately facetious.

We have lots of areas that have densities comparable to the UK. It'd be one thing if you were limiting your remarks to serving Bumfuck Nowhere, but what other the tens of millions in the urban agglomeration?

Oh wait, Comcast buys a law so their city government can't set up Gig fiber either.

Re:fees

[Pfhorrest]

Adam Smith wrote about free markets. Capitalism is something above and beyond a free market, first written about by Marx, who argued it was an inevitable consequence of free market and used that to criticize free markets.

When you conflate free markets with capitalism you're buying into a little bit of Marxist ideology.

Re:fees

[sjames]

It has everything to do with what capitalism becomes when the market regulators are asleep at the switch or simply absent. There is no such thing as "free market capitalism". It is either Capitalism and the market regulations that come with or it is not Capitalism at all. You can't call it anarchy and you can't claim that the government isn't involved because that would make corporations non-existent.

Corporatism might fit or Cronyism or perhaps just plain old corruption.

Re:fees

[sjames]

They get the police to do that for them these days. In that sense, it's worse than it was back then.

Re:fees

[sjames]

Title II could make that happen, but it will be a few years until there are enough choices to make a market work half decently.

For example, back when dial-up was the best technology generally available there were dozens of ISPs to choose from, all connected to a highly regulated POTS network. Prices dropped like a rock and if there was an issue, you could actually get your call elevated to the actual network admin.

The big flub with DSL was not giving the regulations enough teeth to make access truly equal. Many providers gave up when it took a month or three to get their DSLAM connected to a subscriber line but the local Bell's own service would get connected within 24 hours.

Re:fees

[sjames]

Sure, but only if you do not use government money at all, do not use any exercise of eminent domain. That means if you want to run a cable, you negotiate with each and every property owner it needs to run through or over.

Re:fees

[sjames]

It's learned helplessness. Push lever A, push lever B, don't push any lever. It doesn't matter, the painful shock is coming anyway.

Re:fees

[itzly]

You see, the telecos have convinced (see: bribed) many municipalities into signing deals which prevent any competitor from moving in

Sounds like a free market that allows companies to convince/bribe people into signing exclusive deals. It sounds like you want a more regulated market in which such exclusive deals are prohibited ?

Re:fees

[itzly]

Even if you only take the metro areas, the US is still far behind.

Re:fees

[Jack Griffin]

Er what? Is your colo something different form what I think it is, ie a co-location datacentre where you can rent rack space? Fibre is at the colo, where it isn't is the last mile to your house because the telco owns the poles and wires in the street. How do you get data from the colo to your house?

Re:fees

[Jack Griffin]

Australia is almost as big as the US. Our last govt* began a project to roll out fibre to everyone's house (well at least 97%) which would've given us all 1G fibre. Australia has a lot more empty space than the US and far sparser population. If we can do it, then the US should be able to piss it in.

*unfortunately our last govt lost the last election and the new govt knocked the project on the head, despite every independent analysis backing up the claim it was a net gain for the economy and would've returned a profit to the govt as an asset once complete. Ah politics. never let the facts get in the way of chance to score points, even if it means fucking over the country in the process.

Re:fees

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

I propose that instead, we bring FIBER to a COLO, from where the citizens can CHOOSE (market forces) the options and features they desire from the multitude of companies that offer these services.

That's how we do it in most of "socialist" Sweden. I.e. I have an "open city network" fibre to my house. ISPs are free to sell service on that fibre/network (for a small access fee that pays for the network infrastructure, now less than 10% of my montly fee). So I have a choice of eight different ISPs and pay about $40/month for 100/100Mbps + IP telephony (no subscription fee, but charged calls). I also get cable TV over the same fibre from a different company but that's extra, about $25 for the channels I get.

That's how you'd actually want it organised to enable a free market.

Re:fees

[serviscope_minor]

You have a serious case of Stockholm syndrome: that is sympathising with your captives.

Sweden has a lower population density than the US, yet has much higher speeds and cheaper prices. The US is larger over all, but that should make it cheaper, since the problem is easier (higher overall density) and it would get to benefit from economies of scale.

Even if you ignore that, Japan, Korea, Sweden and a whole bunch of others have both much larger size and much lower density than the dense US metro areas, yet still have much higher speed than the said dense US metro areas.

Sure the US metro areas are better than rural ones, but US metro areas are still much worse than some countries.

Re:fees

[serviscope_minor]

If build a network, it is up to me to operate it the way I want to.

Sure the government gives you the structure of corporations to protect you and sure the government provides you a legal structure for you to even have contracts with your customers, but oh boy you get whiny if the government doesn't give you everything else too.

Basically no. It's long been established that companies can't do what they want simply because they got some sucker to sign a piece of paper.

Re:fees

[Jane Q. Public]

Adam Smith wrote about free markets. Capitalism is something above and beyond a free market, first written about by Marx, who argued it was an inevitable consequence of free market and used that to criticize free markets.

You're arguing terminology over substance. Modern economists acknowledge that it was Smith who pretty solidly defined what we call "capitalism" as a socioeconomic structure. He didn't use the WORD "capitalism", but he defined everything we currently call free-market capitalism today.

Marx called it "captitalism". But we already knew what it was. Big fucking deal.

Re:fees

[msauve]

So, how many connections will feed into this CoLo you mention? And, do you have a study which compares the cost of running all those home runs to simply aggregating traffic on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis?

Re:fees

[Attila Dimedici]

It has nothing to do with "unregulated corporate greed". It has a lot to do with corporate greed using regulations for their own benefit. The "problem" this new "net neutrality" regulation is supposed to fix was created by the government in the first place when it granted cable companies monopoly status in various areas. I never cease to be amazed at how often people respond to problems created by abusive use of government power by demanding that the government be given even more power.

Re:fees

[Attila Dimedici]

It is not "people" who are signing exclusive deals. It is government which is doing so. May I suggest that the answer is for people to demand that their local government allow such exclusive deals to expire and allow actual competition? Rather than reward the government for abusing its power by demanding that it gather even more power?

Re:fees

[Attila Dimedici]

The reason the problem is systemic throughout the nation is because the federal government encouraged this situation in the first place. The local/regional monopolies exist because of a federal law which allowed them to exist. So, the federal government abused its power by encouraging local/regional monopolies to come into existence. Now you want to reward the federal government by asking them to gather even more power to themselves?

Maybe instead we should ask the federal government to eliminate the law allowing local governments to enter into franchise agreements?

Re:fees

[robbyb20]

Wait, you had to get the government to help you? And you're complaining that the government is trying to help you again? Jesus Christ.

Re:fees

[TheGratefulNet]

its not just governments. I used to live at an apartment complex and when I was there, they signed a 5 or even 10 year technology contract with a cable company, exclusively. they wired our building and we had to buy service from them. zero choice in the matter.

what was funny (not ha-ha funny) was that in the middle of silicon valley, we had some of the worst service I've ever seen. 20 years ago I moved from boston to the bay area and stereo tv was pretty common at the time, and yet our pay-tv (mtv was semi watchable at that time) was all in mono and the vendor would not upgrade since he signed a many-year contract and had no MOTIVATION to upgrade anything!

silicon valley and we could not get stereo encoded tv shows. that's just an example and I'm sure its long since been changed by now, but this shows what you get when you sign exclusive contracts that last many years with someone who clearly does not want to invest one penny more than he has to.

even if townships allow multiple isp's in, apartment complexes still sign contracts with just one vendor and you are stuck with them for years and years.

regular people have no say in this. the only say you have is to put up your own sat dish (for tv, at least) and have that ugly thing take up your personal balcony space. as for internet, you have pacbell dsl (which is now dog-slow by modern standards) and you have one cable co that will service your area. that's it.

and its been this way since, well, forever. for as long as mainstream broadband has been around, at least.

Re:fees

[MTEK]

Cronyism, lack of competition, and lack of sensible regulation make capitalism much worse than it should be. And it's nothing new.

Re:fees

[JakeBurn]

I was going to mod that up as insightful until I got to:
"If build a network, it is up to me to operate it the way I want to"
It doesn't matter who the missing preposition referred to, that statement is wrong on many levels. The first issue with that statement is that you are assuming this network is in some magical land where the builder of the network OWNS every inch of land that THEIR network is on and paid every penny that was spent to build it. If a company CHOOSES to build on PUBLIC property using PUBLIC funds then they have no right to cry when others use those facilities. Otherwise you're claiming that whichever company goes first has the right to form monopolies since there's limited space for communication conduits and all of those spaces are public spaces including wireless spaces. The moment a court forced a private land owner to allow communication lines or equipment to be installed they opened that door. Your switching stations on YOUR property are yours to do with as you please but only if 100% of the money spent on that equipment was yours and only if the property itself was a 100% capitalist sale and not gained from a court order. The other 99.99whatever% of the distance is not YOURS. It wasn't built on your land or even paid for by your company in many cases.
Oh, and we're not even bothering to touch the numerous rights of the public given when the FCC broke up certain spectrum chunks for corporate use which specifically dictate that you CANNOT use that network any way you choose.

Re:fees

[allquixotic]

It absolutely is.

Re:fees

[Attila Dimedici]

But that was your choice. You did not have to rent an apartment in that building. I actually lived in an apartment complex with a similar contract. Except that about 5 years before I moved out, the complex found that they needed to bring in a second ISP for competitive reasons (some people chose not to rent there because they preferred the other ISP).

Re:fees

[jmac_the_man]

Congress has a Net Neutrality bill (banning blocking and fast lanes) that doesn't impose Title II. Democrats in the Senate are blocking it because they want to impose the regulations that Title II comes with.

Re:fees

[jmac_the_man]

The decision is kind of a surprise to me given the head of the FCC was an influential telco lobbyist prior to his appointment. In this case it seems to me the FCC are doing their job by telling telco's what to do, rather than the other way around (as one would expect with such blatantly insestious oversight).

This was a grudge thing. In the early 80s, Wheeler ran a business that was essentially AOL over cable lines. AOL could force phone companies to partner with them, because of Title II. Wheeler could not because Title II didn't apply to cable companies, so AOL succeeded, Wheeler failed, and cable companies started providing internet access themselves when the market for it emerged.

Wheeler's op ed a few weeks ago was about this experience. He hates the cable companies, and wanted to screw them. He got his chance.

Re:fees

[sabri]

But, when you sell *Internet* access, you have a responsibility to provide *Internet* access

They provide internet access. The fact that it isn't fast enough for you doesn't mean they don't.

The whole point of my argument is that the FCC should not be regulating an operator's network operations, but to enable a competitive playing field so that YOU can vote with your money and take your business elsewhere. That is what the FCC should do.

Net neutrality is nothing but a bandage on a bullet wound.

Re:fees

[jmac_the_man]

If you missed it, Comcast was slowing down Netflix data on purpose, until Netflix paid Comcast extra for it.

That's not true. Netflix's ISP, Cognet, was slowing Netflix down to protect its other customers, who were paying a higher rate than Netflix. The "Netflix paying off Comcast" bullshit is really Netflix serving Comcast customers by connecting to Comcast directly rather than through their ISP, essentially being partially their own ISP.

Re:fees

[sabri]

FCC isn't stating how anyone can operate their networks. Net neutrality is about saying that corporations cannot screw customers at will.

Oh really? I believe that Net Neutrality rules specifically tell an operator how to configure their networks. They specify that a network operator is not allowed to use certain QoS configurations. They specify that a network operator is not allowed to use certain policing/metering configurations. They specify that a network operator is not allowed to use influence the routing of traffic within their network.

The government has no business telling me how to run my network.

You must be Republican.

I am not. I am pro-choice, pro gay marriage, pro pot legalization and against religious influences on the government. But I am an expert in the field of networking.

Re:fees

[Pfhorrest]

It is a big fucking deal because there are long running threads of economic thought which oppose capitalism yet support free markets, and to conflate the two (and equivalently to conflate socialism with a command economy) creates a false dichotomy between capitalist free markets and statist socialism, ignoring and erasing the possibilities of non-capitalist free markets and non-statist socialism.

Re:fees

[sabri]

Sure the government gives you the structure of corporations to protect you and sure the government provides you a legal structure for you to even have contracts with your customers,

I don't need the government for any of that.

but oh boy you get whiny if the government doesn't give you everything else too.

You have a very distorted sense of reality. I don't need anything from the government. I am saying that the government should stop taking something away, that is the right of me choosing in whatever way I wish to operate my own goddamn network. The government has no business in telling me what to do on my network.

Re:fees

[Maxo-Texas]

Your date is well chosen. Things went south starting in the 1880s.

So we got the sherman anti-trust acts in the 1920s thru the 1930s and things started going badly again in the 1980s when many of the protections were bypassed or repealed.

Companies would still be making huge profits if they shared the wealth with their workers and the economy would be more robust. It's sort a tragedy of the commons. When one company cuts salaries, it does well. When most companies cut salaries, then things are just miserable and the companies get no competitive advantage.

Walmart's raise won't really give a raise (it's about .3% of their profits- affects a tiny percentage of their workforce). But a real raise by walmart ($5 for every employee) would still leave them with enormous profits and their workers would have more money to spend (which would largely be spent at walmart-- raising walmart's sales and increasing it's profits).

The actual figures are-- annual profit of Walmart $19 billion. Cost of $5 raise, 7.5 billion. Leaving Walmart with a profit of 19 billion.
But wait... they spent 7.6 billion buying back stock to raise stock prices (which is a very expensive way of increasing pay to the executives). And they gave $12 billion to investors in dividends. So they could have a net profit of 20 billion, give everyone a $5 raise (or a $4 raise and put staffing levels back where they were in 2012 before they cut staff too far with disastrous results), still give 12 billion to shareholders in dividends (executives and walton family have a lot of stock so they are getting a nice chunk here) and cut the 7.6 billion stock buy back.

Re:fees

[sabri]

Your switching stations on YOUR property are yours to do with as you please but only if 100% of the money spent on that equipment was yours and only if the property itself was a 100% capitalist sale and not gained from a court order. The other 99.99whatever% of the distance is not YOURS. It wasn't built on your land or even paid for by your company in many cases.

How a network was a acquired, is irrelevant. If I own a network, it is mine to do whatever I choose to do with it. If I want to throw everything on a big pile and burn it, that is my right (well, apart from the environmental consequences).

My network, my rules. And if you don't agree, don't get on my network.

Having that said, you should read my comment again. The whole point of my comment is that the FCC should make it easier for YOU to make that choice. YOU should be able to have a choice to switch to a competitor of mine who has rules that favor you instead of another company. The FCC is making it extremely difficult for me to start an ISP. I would love to quit my job and start an ISP that focuses on providing the best customer experience for a reasonable price, but it is virtually impossible to do so.

Net Neutrality rules are nothing more than forcing you to go to McDonalds every day, but at least they tell McDonalds that they can't take payment from Pepsico to make it impossible for you to have a Coke Zero with your meal.

Re:fees

[Maxo-Texas]

Very nice. That costs $120 a month in Houston but it's only 50 megabits per second and there's a 250 gig data cap.

But there is no competition in Houston and hasn't been for decades.

My only option is DSL which is much slower (6mps "elite" is the best available).

Re:fees

[Shirley Marquez]

I live in Boston. In most of the city, there is only one consumer provider that meets the current definition of broadband (25Mbps or faster): Comcast. (A few parts of the city have a second one, RCN. And you can get business-oriented broadband services from other companies but they are crazy expensive.) Slower services are available: DSL from Verizon and CLECs, service from Sprint and FreedomPop on what is left of the Clearwire network, LTE from cell phone providers, and satellite internet if you have a clear view of the sky and can put up the dish.

Re:fees

[Jane Q. Public]

It is a big fucking deal because there are long running threads of economic thought which oppose capitalism yet support free markets, and to conflate the two (and equivalently to conflate socialism with a command economy) creates a false dichotomy between capitalist free markets and statist socialism, ignoring and erasing the possibilities of non-capitalist free markets and non-statist socialism.

You're arguing against something I didn't even say. Why?

I'm not going to even bother dignifying the rest with an answer. I didn't see anybody dispute any of this so there is no point in arguing about it.

Re:fees

[sydbarrett74]

Uhhhh....you completely misunderstood me. I was saying that that 'competition' was ill-thought out last time. The infrastructure should be a public utility, with competition to offers services over it. You incorrectly inferred that I disagreed with government intervention.

Re:fees

[AK Marc]

I believe that Net Neutrality rules specifically tell an operator how to configure their networks.

Yes, like telephone networks. It's illegal for your phone company to see you are dialing 1-800-coca-cola and redirect your phone call to 1-800-pepsi-co. But for your Internet connection, that was 100% legal (and done, in many cases).

They specify that a network operator is not allowed to use certain QoS configurations.

Yes. They are not allowed to use abusive QoS configurations. They are perfectly allowed to use every QoS configuration I've ever seen someone assert is illegal. You can prioritize voice over video, and both over HTTP, or whatever you want. What you can't do is prioritize *your* video service over a competitor's video service. You can still block (or set QoS to the absolutel losest level) P2P and the other things that many were saying they couldn't do.

So, what QoS profile were you looking for that you think is illegal now? If it's not one that benefits your service at the expense of a competitors, or is used for extortion practices, it's legal. So I don't believe you that there's a reasonable QoS profile that is now illegal. Sure, there are some that aren't allowed, but those are only the abusive ones.

They specify that a network operator is not allowed to use certain policing/metering configurations.

policing is QoS, so I don't understand how this is different than the previous statement, also I only hear "metering" as a user billing issue, and it's unrelated to any "configuration" in the network.

They specify that a network operator is not allowed to use influence the routing of traffic within their network.

No, they don't. You can still influence the routing within your network.

Sounds like all your problems with it are from your misunderstanding of it. The reason you were called a Republican is that you are parroting all the disproved talking points the Republicans are using. But not bringing up any valid objections.

Re:fees

[serviscope_minor]

I don't need the government for any of that.

lolwut? How on earth do you propose enforcing contracts without a government?

Re: fees

[kenh]

An infrastructure funded by the entire community, both those that sign up for high-speed Internet and those that don't. That sounds wonderful - free infrastructure for the providers, funded by taxpayers... Unless you are one of the folks that doesn't have an interest in high-speed internet access...

A sizable percentage of Americans that are offered high-speed internet service opt out, either for cost or lack of interest. 'Sizable percentage' is far from a majority, but in many communities that rate is about 25% (from memory), and includes people with access, but no interest in high-speed internet access.

Re: fees

[kenh]

So, what the FCC should really focus on is ... to open up the broadband market to more competition.

Except they don't have jurisdiction, AFAIK.

The problem is the voters have elected representatives that agreed to and enforced local monopolies to encourage investment in enabling infrastructure. Without the offer of a monopoly on the local market, how would the local government be able to ensure everyone has access to the services offered, not just those most likely to subscribe to the services offered? How many competitors would enter a market and invest in a parallel infrastructure to fight over a defined number of customers?

Re: fees

[sabri]

The problem is the voters have elected representatives that agreed to and enforced local monopolies to encourage investment in enabling infrastructure. Without the offer of a monopoly on the local market, how would the local government be able to ensure everyone has access to the services offered, not just those most likely to subscribe to the services offered? How many competitors would enter a market and invest in a parallel infrastructure to fight over a defined number of customers?

Very fair points.

I think what we need to do is to create a public last-mile infrastructure, and let the rest up to the market. This works great in Europe, why wouldn't it work fine in the U.S.?

Re:fees

[tepples]

Perhaps "colo" here refers to the DSLAM or CMTS where the signal gets split to a neighborhood. In Archangel Michael's proposal as I understand it, a neutral party would own the colo and the last mile, but that party wouldn't connect the colo to the Internet. That'd be the job of competitive ISPs.

Re:fees

[tepples]

Some people used to touring can probably make a move in a day.

Re:fees

[Archangel Michael]

Yup.

By COLO, I represent RENTING space (to pay for the COLO facility) where all fiber is terminated. From there, you cross connect to whatever service provider's network the customer desires. It is just a place to house Physical Plant.

Re:fees

[Archangel Michael]

You are right. But only because nobody is actually looking at the problem. Comcast, Time Warner and COX are not the problem, they are the symptom of the problem.

The problem is last mile infrastructure ownership. Municipally owned last mile solves that problem. By pushing the problem from the last mile, to a more centralized COLO facility can solve the problem, by allowing Verizon, Google, Time Warner, COX, Comcast .... and whoever else wants in, access to the same customers.

This gives choice (missing currently) to the customer, rather than lock-in to a Franchise agreement holder.

Re: fees

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

An infrastructure funded by the entire community, both those that sign up for high-speed Internet and those that don't. That sounds wonderful - free infrastructure for the providers, funded by taxpayers...

Who said that the taxpayers funded the network? It was funded by those that chose to connect. If not enough people connect, then no fibre for the area. In my case it was the local district heating company that also lay fibre when they dug up the streets anyway. Cheap and effective.

But, sure, we have (had) people who aren't "interested" in high-speed (aka "only speed") access. Like I'm sure was the case with electrification and city water and sewage treatment. They've mostly come crawling back with their tail between their legs when/if they get the chance to get connected. So I have no fundamental problem with taxpayers footing some of the bill. Much like I don't have a problem when I have to pay for railways I don't personally use, roads I don't travel on, schools I (no longer) send my kids to, etc. etc.

One reason we Swedes manage to stay competitive is undoubtedly our infrastructure, which internet connectivity is a recent part of.

Fun fact: The buildout of fibre connectivity is faster in rural areas, where many communities band together in co-ops to get fibre as it's seen as one way to get young people to stay, instead of moving to the city. So they're fighting hard not only for schools, and groceries these days, but mostly for fibre.

Old rules

[Anonymous Coward]

Old rules just suck. I mean, stuff like "Thou shall not kill"? How are we supposed to deal with terrorists with silly old rules like that?

Re:Old rules

[j-turkey]

Those are *really* antiquated, but they're not government regulations. These government regulations are even more antiquated than the common carrier Title II regulations, and we (Americans) are still forced to live by them.

The rules have only been modified only twenty seven times in over 200 years.

Silly, antiquated regulations.

Re:Old rules

[Dutch Gun]

Start with good information. The actual commandment is "Thou shall not murder" when properly translated from Hebrew texts.

The bit telcos could stand to remember this old rule (again, oft misquoted): For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. - 1 Timothy 6:10

There's nothing wrong with businesses making a profit, but there's a difference between that and profiteering. During WWII, the Chrysler corporation sent the government rebate checks for millions of dollars when they were able to produce war goods under budget. Seriously, could you imagine that today? Wall Street would shit itself.

And this one is for our politicians who have spent years cozying up to said telcos, particularly those who claim to adhere to these teachings: The greedy bring ruin to their households, but the one who hates bribes will live. - Proverbs 15:27

Even if you don't subscribe to the religious aspect, some of those are still pretty decent "old rules" to live by.

Re:Old rules

[diamondmagic]

During WWII, corporations like Chrysler were legally obligated to produce what the Federal government told them or face being commandeered. If there's such a thing as corporate slavery, that was it.

Re:Old rules

[skegg]

Or that ridiculous 2,500 year old rule still applied to medicine today: first, do no harm.

Corporation != People

[Anonymous Coward]

The very fact that Verizon views themselves as having first and fifth amendment rights shows the ludicrous precedents Citizens United sets.

Re:Corporation != People

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck Verizon, fuck ATT, fuck TW, fuck Comcast, fuck everyone else, might as well fuck Google too.
They're not on your side, they fucking GAVE all your call records to the government.
ALL they want is your money, as much as they can take, and power over you, forever.

So long as I, and everyone else, can run OUR OWN fiber down the street if we want to,
I seriously don't give a fuck about these companies. That's real fairness, choice and competition.

Re:Corporation != People

[Anonymous Coward]

you can't fuck them. corporation != people, remember?

Re:Corporation != People

[RightwingNutjob]

Peo[le have freedom of association and freedom of speech. The 1st amendment actually lumps them together as peaceable assembly. Corporations are a peaceable assembly of board members and/or shareholders. Therefore they have speech and property rights like people, and tax burdens like people.

Re:Corporation != People

[flipper9]

You think corporations pay taxes like regular people? Hahahahahahahahahaha!!!

Re:Corporation != People

[RightwingNutjob]

No, but I do think all tax rates (personal, corporate, and capital gains) should be flat and equal.

Re:Corporation != People

[TheGratefulNet]

but they feel no pain, like people. no ability to show remorse or ethics or shame.

they can't be jailed and they are almost never punished in any meaningful way.

they have all the good things we, people have; but none of the bad things.

"gee, dad, when I grow up, I want to be a corporation!"

Re:Corporation != People

[RightwingNutjob]

Check your privelege my friend. I know the poor don't pay taxes. As Romney famously said, the bottom 47% of the economic ladder pay no net taxes, which is to say what they get deducted from their paychecks (if any) they get back in welfare and subsidies.

Re:Corporation != People

[bloodhawk]

go check some of the things people have been admitted to hospital attached too, inserted in them or stuck on them. People will fuck anything, living, dead, animal, vegetable, inanimate.

Re:Corporation != People

[sumdumass]

You think that will stop him? You should have seen what he did to the mail box last Easter. The neighbors still cross the street to get past it.

Re:Corporation != People

[CaptainDork]

Agreed.

That ruling fucked us over in many ways and will continue to do so.

If corporations are people, then they should be allowed to marry and die.

Re:Corporation != People

[sjames]

But when PEOPLE peaceably assemble and then break the peace by committing a crime, they go to jail as individuals. Let the same happen to those board members and we're good.

Re:Corporation != People

[sjames]

He was pointedly ignoring a number of compensatory services the top 53% get back.

Re:Corporation != People

[OrangeTide]

Corporations are legal constructs that we permit to exist, through a well established legal process. They do not have any rights, and operate under permission.
The people who run a corporation have rights of course, the same rights we all have. But in the context of the legal entity of a Corporation, there are bound to be restrictions and limitations. Not only are those restrictions legal and do not interfere with the US Constitution or basic human rights, they are necessary to limit the activities of a corporation.

We don't need to have corporations at all. It exists to limit the liability of individual shareholders, as we permit them with the idea that shareholder investment is more likely when the government is willing to remove the risk. There are of course other ways to manage risk, most of us are familiar with insurance. We insure cars and homes, to manage our risk. If we knew our cars would never be at risk we could all save a lot of money, the purpose of corporation is essentially the same.

If we start giving corporations rights, and grant them unlimited autonomy, we (the people) really will have lost control of everything.

Re:Corporation != People

[OrangeTide]

Rich people go to prison? Now you are talking nonsense.

Re:Corporation != People

[skegg]

Heh heh. Nice one, cheeky bugger.

Re:Corporation != People

[silentcoder]

And he was lying.
There are 47% of the population who pay no FEDERAL INCOME TAX.
They still pay all the OTHER taxes people pay.

He also ignored that the vast majority of that 47% are NOT welfare recipients or unemployed people.
They are the soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the retired pensioners who worked hard their entire lives so they could stop working in their old age.

That statement was deceptive at best, blatant lying if you're being fair.

Re:Corporation != People

[RightwingNutjob]

Doesn't matter. The point is they have no skin in the game wrt federal taxation, and given that the federal government has gradually crept up to about 25% of American economic activity and is 1.5 years worth of GDP in the hole, the fact that nearly half the people have nearly half the vote but zero financial obligations is unhealthy and potentially dangerous not just to the other half.

Re:Corporation != People

[silentcoder]

Just saying "x is dangerous" doesn't make it so. You need to provide proof.

But what did I expect from somebody called "RightwingNutjob" ... rational response ?

Either way it DOES matter because the topic of discussion is not and never WAS whether that number is too high or not, the topic is whether Romney told the truth - and since he utterly misrepresented what that number even MEANS he clearly did not.

Re:Corporation != People

[hey!]

Corporations are a peaceable assembly of board members and/or shareholders.

This is an interesting, but not quite valid argument. The reason is that corporations are *not* an assemblage of individuals. Associations are. The laws and privileges entailed in being a corporation are different. If associations, partnerships and corporations were the same thing, the rules would be the same. But thery're not. Stockholders aren't financially responsible for the debts of a corporation, nor are they legally responsible for the deeds of the corporation.

I hold stock in a number of companies. Were I a *partner* in the corporations I could walk onto any of the company's properties, because it's *my* property. If I own stock in Target I can't just have a shufti around the back room of the store; it's not my store. It belongs to the corporation.

Also as a stockholder in a number of corporations, when those corporations engage in political activity they are not exercising *my* rights. They don't represent me in any way, nor do I have veto power when I disagree with them. When the Sierra Club speaks out on environmental issues, you can presume they speak for me as a member, because they exist for that purpose, and I joined on that basis. When JP Morgan Chase buys a congressman, they are not speaking for me, even though I hold stock. I'd rather they don't. I bought JP Morgan stock many years ago as an investment. Insofar as they participate in politics they're usually working against my interests.

Re:Corporation != People

[RightwingNutjob]

Except that the emotional BS about pushing grandma off a cliff in her wheelchair and the soldiers and the retirees came after and, as usual for lefty "counterarguments" about fiscal discipline, failed to acknowledge the core point about 47% of people not having skin in the game on federal spending.

Makes Me Wish I Could Leave Verizon

[Anonymous Coward]

Makes me wish I could leave Verizon. But the only other player in town is comcast, and like fuck I'm signing up with them again.

Verizon is just following Alinsky

[dbc]

When the fact are not on your side, use ridicule.

Re:Verizon is just following Alinsky

[FountainGuy]

Yes that is Rules for Radicals #5, but why not #4? [RULE 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules. (This is a serious rule. The besieged entity’s very credibility and reputation is at stake, because if activists catch it lying or not living up to its commitments, they can continue to chip away at the damage.)] Having failed twice in the courts with this, Soros money is used to flood the zone early with tens of thousands of FCC comments. The conservative side is a little slow getting out of the gate, but they have sent 102,922 "Just say NO!" emails I have zero love for Verizon, but there is no shortage of facts why government control is a bad idea.

Re:Verizon is just following Alinsky

[TapeCutter]

government control is a bad idea

As opposed to what? - Anarchy, tribalism, feudal warlords? An economic market is not a thing or a place, it's a set of rules that govern trade. The Fox News definition of "free market" = "free from regulation" is an oxymoron at best.

Clever.

[bhlowe]

More people have read that press release than have read the full text of the bill. Feel free to link to the entire bill if you think I'm wrong.

Re:Clever.

[bhlowe]

Yeah, I meant "Rule". That said, it would be nice if the "most transparent administration ever" would have released the contents of the rules so they could be judged on the facts, rather than the concepts. The whole, you have to pass it before you can see whats in it is something everyone should oppose. I am suspect when the government comes in and says they're here for my benefit.

Re:Clever.

[bhlowe]

I'm not worried about rules that everyone will like. Its the power grabs, limits to freedom, or "unintended consequences" that may or may not be in the regulations. We all love the Internet... we should all care very deeply with what our "leaders" attempt to do regulate it in secret.

Re:Clever.

[Ksevio]

They haven't written the full rules yet and the FCC is not part of the Obama administration

Re:Clever.

[Cederic]

What fucking relevance does that have? You appear to have a blind hatred for one individual and the party he represents and lazily ascribe all ill in that direction.

Try not to be a bigot, the world is not red and blue, and there is nuance, subtlety and compromise in most things.

Maybe you dislike this policy. Fine. Tell us why, don't be an ignorant twat going "d'uhbama bad, it's all his fault, we should nuke iran"

Re:Clever.

[bhlowe]

I may very well love this new set of regulations. But will this set of regulations include, or make it easier to imposes taxes, expand wiretapping, or outlaw certain types of IP traffic, or criminalize crypto-currencies, etc. ?

Re:Clever.

[bhlowe]

That isn't why the regulations were not released. A specific gag order was implemented that prevented anyone outside of a select group from viewing the proposed rules until after they were voted on. It wasn't because no one filed a FOIA request or the FCC just forgot to post a PDF. It would have been a violation of law to release the documents. The camel's nose is inside the tent. What could possibly go wrong.

verizon's preference....

[Anonymous Coward]

... rules imposed by robber barons

Re:verizon's preference....

[jythie]

No, robber barons generally sent someone to your house too. They were more powerful than local government in many regions.

Idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

So they don't want to be under Title 2 since it was written in 1934, but instead wanted to be under Title 1 which was also written in 1934.

Makes sense. /sarc

Stomp Feet

[Etherwalk]

...imposes 2000s (1990s?) Internet access speed!

More like they don't expect to win a real argument that the FCC's proposals are in any way bad, so they are trying to win by mocking the FCC.

It's a schoolyard bully's trick.

Re:Stomp Feet

[Defenestrar]

And it's the idiot bully's trick at that; the clever ones don't provoke the playground monitors.

And now, I would like to sincerely and heartily thank Verizon for the initial lawsuit provoking the playground monitor that made net neutrality a reality. I strongly encourage additional attention and noise to the issue for full on public utility regulation. Here's to moving the US into a First World nation with First World utilities like power, water, and real broadband - wired and wireless.

Re:Stomp Feet

[duckintheface]

" imposes rules on broadband Internet services that were written in the era of the steam locomotive and the telegraph."

Oh, you mean back in the days when giant corporations used their monopoly status to squeeze huge amounts of money out of their customers in the absence of competiton? Those days?

Re:Stomp Feet

[amiga3D]

It just drips Irony doesn't it?

Re:Stomp Feet

[SeaFox]

More like they don't expect to win a real argument that the FCC's proposals are in any way bad, so they are trying to win by mocking the FCC.

It's a schoolyard bully's trick.

The FCC should let'er rip and give Verizon their own 0.02 cents on the topic.

Re:Stomp Feet

[Anonymous Coward]

Their mocking just proves the FCC did the right thing.

Re:Stomp Feet

[diamondmagic]

The corporations thereof that used these exact rules to maintain their monopoly and prevent customers from owning telephones outright? Those laws?

Re:Stomp Feet

[Chess_the_cat]

How can you say the FCC's proposals are in no way bad when even the EFF doesn't like some of them? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/...

Re: Stomp Feet

[Oonushi]

It gets better:

In 2012, it insisted that the very idea of Net neutrality squished its First and Fifth Amendment right,"

Someone should tell Verizon that the Bill of Rights isn't to be taken seriously either since you know they were written just before the time of steam locomotives and the telegraph!

They wouldn't want to be hypocrites after all.

Re:Stomp Feet

[Anonymous Coward]

the oft discussed "fast lane" has yet to actually happen

Tell that to Sprint and T-Mobile and AT&T and the other carriers who announced plans to do exactly that, not to mention the numerous examples already in effect worldwide.

Only exist on paper? What the fuck. I seriously don't know what rock you're living under.

Re:Stomp Feet

[Maxo-Texas]

Of course... that article is dated before the ruling.

Today, the front page reads this way.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/...

I case you don't choose to read the ruling.
Let me summarize:

EFF LOVES THE RULING.

Re:Stomp Feet

[smaddox]

(the oft discussed "fast lane" has yet to actually happen)

I get about 5x lower bandwidth streaming movies from Amazon than from Netflix. I've stopped renting HD movies from Amazon because the buffering kills it. Netflix happens to have paid to AT&T (my ISP) to get preferred service [1].

Hmm... That sounds an awful lot like a "fast lane" to me.

[1] http://time.com/3059431/netfli...

Re:Stomp Feet

[SeaFox]

Yes. Unfortunately I don't think it works as well without being able to use a cents symbol (stupid lack of unicode on Slashdot).

Re:Stomp Feet

[fibonacci8]

Unfortunately, using Verizon's logic, Verizon should be paying the postal service extra to deliver their snark to the FCC rather than arriving in a timely fashion like say, transmission at a speed agreed upon in a contract between a service provider and customers at each end. And the postal service should be permitted to raise the price for certain customers based on increased quantity of mail sent over some arbitrary amount that can only be interpreted as "too much / we want more money / your speech isn't as free as the other customers'. "

Re:Stomp Feet

[Bite The Pillow]

Netflix also has edge content servers, so ISPs can serve from their network instead of requesting over another network. And piles of measurements and bad press showing how third parties are throttling.

I would not jump to the conclusion of fast laning without the same kinds of measurements of Amazon traffic.

Re:Stomp Feet

[foreverdisillusioned]

A couple years ago, youtube was extremely frustrating to watch on my DSL connection. Lots of buffering. I don't just mean one day youtube slow for some reason; this went on for several months and I basically gave up on youtube for a little while. Then I finally got around to googling the issue and I saw a bunch of people saying to use a VPN. So I did. Flawless performance from then on... this despite the VPN having significantly lower bandwidth than what I had through my ISP. Oh and my ISP was heavily pushing their own streaming on-demand video service at the time.

So tell me... what's YOUR explanation for what happened?

The problem with this sort of thing not being illegal is they really don't have to even tell people they are doing it. And if they're smart, they can and probably are taking measures to prevent people from realizing they're doing it--rotating out the customers they throttle, throttling only at certain times of day, etc.

So, that's my thesis. It has existed for quite a while, but it's growing and starting to involve third parties so that it really isn't possible to hide it any more. Oh yeah, and ISPs were throttling P2P users (not pirates--ANY use of p2p, like sharing ubuntu ISOS) a LONG time ago.

Re:Stomp Feet

[doccus]

I must be missing something here..how is the right to block or slow down my (or anyone's) connection a matter of 1st or 5th amendment rights, or in fact any kind of rights or freedoms? The ISP doesn't like what you're viewing or downloading? - Their preferred answer is to block it.. Doesn't sound very "fair" to me... Or is that the point? It seems like everybody's against both camps here, the new "neutrality" rules and the ISP preferences.. What I'm trying to figure out is what does the FCC (i.e. DHS/CIA) expect to get out of this?

Re:Stomp Feet

[jmac_the_man]

The FACT this set of regulation was secret and the public blocked from seeing it until (presumably) after it is passed is an obvious sign that something in the regulations stinks.

Hey! That's not true. It wasn't a secret, because Google's lobbyist got the FCC to add something to the proposal the night before it was voted on.

Presumably the FCC would have shown it to any other special interest that gave a shitload of money to their party. So there you go. Transparent.

Re:Stomp Feet

[jmac_the_man]

Those two articles have different bylines. The anti-Title II one was written by Corynne McSherry, and the pro-Title II one was written by Jeremy Gillula and Mitch Stoltz. So three different people supposedly have two opposing views.

Secondly, the first piece asked for a specific change to the Title II regulation. (They waited so long to raise the issue because the FCC never actually released the final text of the rule. Still, by the way. It will be actually published for the first time in a few weeks.) The first piece thinks that the "General Conduct rule," which lets the FCC act against ISP "abuses" that aren't blocking or throttling, is too broadly worded. (Essentially, Ms. McSherry's argument here is that the Title II rule should have a specific set of things that it bans, and the government shouldn't be able to punish someone unless they violate those rules.)

What do Mr. Gillula and Mr. Stoltz think of the General Conduct Rule?

But now we face the really hard part: making sure the FCC doesn’t abuse its authority.

For example, the new rules include a “general conduct rule” that will let the FCC take action against ISP practices that don’t count as blocking, throttling, or paid prioritization. As we said last week and last year, vague rules are a problem. The FCC wants to be, in Chairman Wheeler’s words, “a referee on the field” who can stop any ISP action that it thinks “hurts consumers, competition, or innovation.” The problem with a rule this vague is that neither ISPs nor Internet users can know in advance what kinds of practices will run afoul of the rule...We must stay vigilant, and call out FCC overreach.

The actual order is over 300 pages long, and it’s not widely available yet. Details matter.

That sounds like the EFF giving a mixed review of the Title II regulation to me. More importantly, the pieces don't contradict each other.

Re:Stomp Feet

[eric_harris_76]

It'd be nice if we could estimate their likelihood of success.

You know, by seeing the actual regulations.

"You will find out what's in it when you violate it", maybe?

Re:Stomp Feet

[bhlowe]

Right, the gag order imposed on the 300 pages of regulations was for our own good. Thank you, government.

Re: Stomp Feet

[kenh]

It makes no difference to a person in one municipality how many ISPs there are are in other municipalities...

Re:Stomp Feet

[TheTurtlesMoves]

Data caps? What century are you in. I haven't had a data cap on my connections since about 2000. 20Mbit down, and 2Mbit up. No limits.

Really?!

[Anonymous Coward]

With how much the carriers charge per kilobyte for text messages, you'd think they had to convert them to Morse code and back again!

Show them up for what they are

[oldmac31310]

Immature little shits who want it all and give nothing back.

Re:Show them up for what they are

[x0ra]

Why the heck should they gives back ? They made their own profit, it's not their fault if you are unable to have the guts to do the same.

Verizon is not a content creator

[msobkow]

Verizon's arguments about controlling content are absolute red herrings. A content creator like a newspaper gets to determine the content and articles they publish or promote. The manufacturer of the paper it's printed on has no say.

Re:Verizon is not a content creator

[Em Adespoton]

I don't know about that... I'd say that Verizon's been creating quite a bit of content lately, most of it false.

Re:Verizon is not a content creator

[x0ra]

A manufacturer of paper has no obligation to supply the content creator...

Re:the layout sucks, thanks Dice !

[by (1706743)]

Of course, some people/corporations will make arguments relating internet to delivery services -- paying more for overnight shipping means you get the package/letter faster. Of course, this is a flawed argument for myriad reasons, not the least of which is that if someone mails me an overnight letter I don't then have to pay extra to receive it...

They fear it will curb internet growth?

[grimmjeeper]

Hardly. The only thing they fear is that they're going to lose their very lucrative revenue streams since they can't overcharge for prioritizing traffic any more.

Re:They fear it will curb internet growth?

[Em Adespoton]

And since they're a public company, losing lucrative revenue streams can do horrible things to their quarterly earnings reports, pissing off their investors.

I'd say this entire song & dance is to show their investors that they mean business and weren't lying down on the job, even if profits shrink.

Re:They fear it will curb internet growth?

[F34nor]

Money is a form of speech thanks to citizens united so they are no bribes, they are "protected political speech!" FUCK YOU CONSERVATIVES!

Re:They fear it will curb internet growth?

[grimmjeeper]

Putting in artificial delays is prioritizing. If you don't pay more your priority goes to the end of the line.

Re:They fear it will curb internet growth?

[F34nor]

Who were the supreme court justices that passed it? Benefitting from a bad law or a loop hole is a economic certainty. Voted for crazy people has real word effects.

The fight will never be over

[houghi]

As long as the companies do not get what they want, they will try again and again. And why wouldn't they? They have nothing to loose.

Re:The fight will never be over

[DamnOregonian]

They have nothing to loose.

Sure they do- an entire army of lobbyists. They'll loose them like the dogs of war. Now, they may very well have nothing to lose
;)

Support Gurgle

[Anonymous Coward]

Gurgle is good. Proof: 2 o's.

Corporations have no rights!

[F34nor]

The are incorporated meaning made corporeal as an act of state, they have no more inherent right to petition government than a my shoe. The share holders, employees, executives, and customers can petition on their behalf.

Perhaps a little history is in order

[Jahoda]

The last time I checked, 1934 was the era of the diesel electric and the telex, not the "steam engine and the telegraph". But, distortions of reality are verizon's specialty.

Re:Perhaps a little history is in order

[PPH]

Perhaps Verizon is about 100 years behind the times.

Re: Maybe the regulations are reasonable, but so w

[Billly Gates]

Easy the us constitution forbids states interfering with interstate commerce. Therefore the FCC has the right

Maybe

[Mikkeles]

... rules on broadband Internet services that were written in the era of the steam locomotive and the telegraph.

Yeah, and rules against wanton killing were written in ancient times. Maybe we should rid ourselves of such laws when telecom execs are the victims.

Fuck you, Verizon.

[Rinikusu]

Yep.

Throttling is Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't mind throttling at all, in fact, I use it myself.

Anything going outside my network to an ad server is throttled to morse code speeds.

and I even throttle my payments. I pay my internet bill in 0.01 increments. True, they did complain, but when I explained that thorttling is a win-win situation, they got on board happilly.

I "sell" a non-throttled plan to ISPs. For a 1% discount, I pay in 0.02 increments, for a 5% discount, in 0.05 increments, and so on, up to and including the full ammount of the bill!

Thorttling is a win-win situation.

Re:the layout sucks, thanks Dice !

[techno-vampire]

Only if they prioritize based on content. They can always base the priority on the source or destination of the packet, ignoring the content. Not that I'd approve of that either, but it's not only possible, it's faster and simpler than opening the package.

Re:Bigger problem

[jythie]

Level playing fields are for commies.

If N.N. impacts Verizons 1st Ammendment rights

[Timmy D Programmer]

Then Verizons idea of free speech is censorship, throttling, and restricting other's speech.

Re:If N.N. impacts Verizons 1st Ammendment rights

[x0ra]

Verizon is by no mean subject to the Bill of Rights. It works only one way, to put boundaries to the government powers, not private entities...

Re:Need a QoS

[easyTree]

It's a sad day when big business is more corrupt than the government :(

All those flavors...

[Pluvius]

...and Verizon chose to be salty.

Rob

Almost Clever

[Anonymous Coward]

Its almost clever, a good gimmic, something unique to catch attention and get talked about. Just one tiny problem.

Everybody with enough technical savvy to be amused by a morse code message also knows how badly ISP's have been screwing us. They are trying to appeal to the population group that hates them most, it was a good try too, just doomed to fail. They've got a pretty good PR department, too bad the have so little to work with.

This is a great time to switch carriers

[eclectro]

Just tell them that you don't want to be with a company that feels like it needs to use morse code.

Re:This is a great time to switch carriers

[Livius]

Maybe a different company not stuck with 1830s technology.

Oh, the irony....

[NimbleSquirrel]

The irony here is that Verizon makes full use of it's Title II status in other areas (wired telephony and mobile voice), and has used Title II benefits to build its FiOS network. The same Title II status it is now protesting against.

To add more fuel to the irony fire, the FCC would not have had to vote on net neutrality at all if Verizon hadn't sued them in 2012 claiming violation of its First and Fifth Amendment rights.

So, Verizon forced the FCC to make a change, is now complaining that the the FCC has made that change, but behind the scenes has been profiting all along in other areas where that change is in place. Sorry, Verizon, no sympathy for you.

Re:Oh, the irony....

[djdanlib]

This is the best comment I've read on the whole mess.

I love old laws

[jader3rd]

They are the best. Old laws were written way before all of the 'politics' which happens today. New laws are complex, and complexity is fraud. Some old laws are wrong, and have been thrown out, but if the longer the law has survived the better it is.

Re:I love old laws

[rdnetto]

They are the best. Old laws were written way before all of the 'politics' which happens today.

There were politics back then too, it's just that the money was in different industries.

New laws are complex, and complexity is fraud. Some old laws are wrong, and have been thrown out, but if the longer the law has survived the better it is.

Two words: survivorship bias

AKA

[fahrbot-bot]

... opposed by cable and telephone companies that fear it will curb Internet growth and stifle payback on network investment.

Snooping for ad revenues and obscene profit margins

morse code?

[spongman]

sweet! does this mean they're going to upgrade my internet connection to morse code soon?

can't wait.

I just hope this isn't a Br'er rabbit move...

[waspleg]

cause this isn't over yet...

Re:Meanwhile George Soros is laughing

[F34nor]

Where did the U.N. meme come from? Citizens United is more of a threat than the U.N. Did oyu copy and paste this drivel from ALEC?

A reply

[Virtucon]

dot dot dot dash dot dot dash dot dot dot dash dash dot dot dash dash dash dash dot / dash dash dot dash dash dash / dot dot dash dot dot dot dash dash dot dash dot dash dot dash / dash dot dash dash dash dash dash dot dot dash dot dash dot dot dot dot dot dot dash dot dot dot dot dash dot

Verizon go fuck yourself

Hissy fit

[Anonymous Coward]

This "company" acts like a giant angry child.

At some point the united states is responsible for the idea and creation of the corporation. It would be nice to see that they can also impose a 'death penalty' on these immortal creations when they turn into giant sour monopolistic monstrosities.

I've no idea why Verizon exists. It's not healthy for the people, or the nation, as such given it's size and impact the only reasonable thing to do would be to protect the public by shutting them down and scattering their assets. Third parties could move in and take advantage of a nice new open market space somewhere that actually has people and this would lead to entirely new entities rising.

Where I live, I have so many ISP's I cannot even throw a rock without hitting one, 77 of them at last count in my city alone. The death of Verizon would bring this to you. Kill them now!

Re:Hissy fit

[x0ra]

This "company" acts like a giant angry child.

So does the mob petitioning the government...

Re:Meanwhile George Soros is laughing

[turkeyfish]

Sounds like you need to chow down on some that "brain fodder" my friend.

Re:You know what's older than the telegraph?

[turkeyfish]

Unfortunately, the Constitution doesn't provide much guidance concerning internet regulations. Damn thoughtless of the Founding Fathers.

Verizon is Un-American

[sk999]

The code used in Verizon's "Throwback Thursday" release is what is called International Morse Code, invented in Germany, not American Morse code, invented by Morse himself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

Re:Maybe the regulations are reasonable, but so wh

[turkeyfish]

The Wyoming rule sounds attractive by the modern GOP would never let California have another 13 additional seats. However, given the nature of Wyoming, why not go all the way and require that all congressional districts be simply "at-large". This would eliminate all the gerrymandering as well. If congressional candidates can campaign state wide in Alaska, there is no reason all the rest couldn't do it as well.

Common Carrier has benefits

[whistlingtony]

Ya know?

If Verizon doesn't want to be a common carrier, I saw we let them reclassify themselves. They can be an information service. They can lose Common Carrier status. What they seem to forget is that there are two parts to being a Common Carrier. They're not held liable for what's ON their pipes, as long as they don't TOUCH what's on their pipes.

Let them lose Common Carrier, and then let's all sue them into the !@#$ing ground for all the emotionally crippling Internet sent over their pipes. Oh? What's that? Suddenly they want to be common carriers again?

Fuck you Verizon, and fuck your petty little tirades. This is why I use T-Mobile. No contracts, decent prices, and their CEO loves Net Neutrality. Oh, and GSM service so I can take my phone overseas and have it work.

Corporations are not people

[whistlingtony]

Verizon has no 1st or 5th amendment rights. I have them. You have them. Verizon is not a person. They can go fuck themselves.

FCC replies with smoke signals

[future assassin]

n/t

The Thing I like about the New FCC Internet Rules

[turkeyfish]

The thing I like about the new FCC rules is that if the ISP's want to give preferential high speeds to some of its customers to distinguish themselves from their competitors, they will have to do it for all of their customers. This will foster competition among ISP's to finally provide faster speeds, rather than simply pocketing all the excess fees given to promote connectivity, but little used for that purpose.

I can't wait for the first ISP to claim they are the fastest. This is the quickest way toward observing the Red Queen Hypothesis in action.

Innovation!

[Lawrence_Bird]

Isn't that what all the anti-NN peoples said? And here we have Verizoff actually innovating for a change!

Not the solution we're looking for

[Chess_the_cat]

I don't support the corps in this matter at all but I don't support or trust the government either. The Internet doesn't need 300 pages of FCC regulations slapped onto it even if they're meant to "protect" the consumer. There must be a happy medium. The EFF is wary as well. They put it quite bluntly: "The FCC's role must be firmly bounded." https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/...

stifle payback on network investment

[CanEHdian]

Since that "payback" is going to be forced out of our collective pockets, I for one welcome our new Neutrality overlords!

Woosh

[TapeCutter]

Sorry but the parent post is not insightful, if anything it's OT because it's not even talking about net neutrality.

Here's a simple explanation from a qualified comedian.

Of course it isn't over

[tsotha]

The FCC has been shut down by the courts twice already over this kind bureaucratic overreach. Doesn't matter whether or not net neutrality is a good idea - the bureaucracy was never given the authority to impose it by Congress. This will never survive the court challenge.

Can't get a job without Internet anymore

[tepples]

You can just decline to do business with "robber barons".

Unless a service provided only by said "robber barons" is required to get and keep a source of income to keep a roof over your head.

I have an idea!

[wezelboy]

I will pay my verizon bill in the 1930's equivalent. That should come out to be about $.08.

Re:I have an idea!

[ShaunC]

Except you should goof the math and actually pay them $0.008.

Re:I have an idea!

[Bing Tsher E]

You'll be required to pay it with 1930's money. Better head to the coin dealer to buy rare coins out of that glass display case, take out of the coin holders and spend. Pre 1930 wheat cents are the expensive ones, same with the buffalo and shield nickels. All the higher denomination coins are 90% silver, You're not going to find it a good deal...

Re:I have an idea!

[Drethon]

Um, expensive? I'll use 8 good quality 1928 wheat ear pennies which comes out to a value of ~$0.8.

Wheat Ear Values

Re:I have an idea!

[toddestan]

A roll of dateless buffalo nickels would also be a good choice. For those that aren't familiar with the design, the date on the buffalo nickel was on a raised area, which would eventually wear off. Since you can't read the date (at least without resorting to tricks like using acid), the coin really doesn't have much collector value anymore.

Ancient America

[ZipK]

"Today (Feb.26) the Federal Communications Commission approved an order urged by President Obama that imposes rules on broadband Internet services that were written in the era of the steam locomotive and the telegraph."

I wonder if they realize that the entire government springs from a Constitution written in 1787.

Re:You know what's older than the telegraph?

[Livius]

You know what's older than the telegraph?

The Constitution.

And in practice about equally relevant.

The irony

[Ol Olsoc]

Hey Verizon, those Hams you just dicked on were activated when your weak and fragile 911 system goes down.

Why? Because they can get through when you can't. I'm going to have to drop them a note

I have a message for verizon

[drinkypoo]

I shall have to use telegraph code. The symbols I shall utilize are dots and pipes. Ready? Here we go: ..|..

..._ . ._. .. __.. ___ _. Have to put in somethi

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

.._. .._ _._. _._ _.__ ___ .._
Have to put in something.

Hey slashdot learn the difference between Morse and ascii art!

Re:Is this really about Net Neutrality?

[msobkow]

The real legislation is only 20 pages; the other 280 are describing the pork-barrel projects and legislation.

Hypocrites

[thePicket]

It's all fine for them to be a humble "common carrier" when this gets them subsidies: https://www.techdirt.com/artic... but it's oh so scandalous when it doesn't pay.

problem

[Tom]

it insisted that the very idea of Net neutrality squished its First and Fifth Amendment right

There's your problem right there. Once we grow three brain cells and understand that corporations are not people, and while they deserve rights, they don't deserve the same rights. I'm not even saying higher or lower, just saying there's a fucking difference, acknowledge it!

And presented in the spirit

[Opportunist]

of the hackney coach drivers who insist that they should have the monopoly and their business must not be impeded by a change in technology.

Dear Verizon board: Fuck you and fuck your firstborns.

And I guess the US Constitution is antiquated too?

[thisisauniqueid]

"Old" doesn't mean "antiquated".

It's working

[thisisauniqueid]

The fact that the FCC's move provoked this reaction from Verizon shows that the FCC did something right.

It is you shalt not murder

[aepervius]

The old testament god was made as a conquest god. Our ancestor did not have as much knowledge as us , but they were not irrational. They made with what they had. So give them credit where credit is due : it would have made no sense to write myth about a god killing and ordering killing people right and left, including babies, and then pronounce "you shall not kill". No. The commandement is "you shalt not murder" thus preserving the artistic logic and integrity of the old testament, those were not murder, they were kills (the line is very thin and very blurry between both from this side of the moral evolution we underwent, but it is a huge difference for a desert iron age tribe). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

Curb Growth? Really?

[theGhostPony]

"The rules, which have not yet been released, are opposed by cable and telephone companies that fear it will curb Internet growth..."

Is that why the US is already dead last when it comes to bandwidth and download speeds?

Robbing Roosevelt to pay Washington?

[ramriot]

So, Verizon posted " 'Throwback Thursday' Move Imposes 1930s Rules on the Internet" and yet on In 2012, it insisted that the very idea of Net neutrality squished its First and Fifth Amendment right,".

Sorry Verizon, you cannot have it both ways. You cannot use the argument that a law enacted in an age of Steam and Telegraph ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... ) is bad while maintaining protection under another law enacted in an age of Sail and buggy whips ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U... ).

Unless that is you wish to say that the Communications act of 1934 is unconstitutional, and I think you have had enough time in the last 81 years to challenge that.

You can argue un-applicability, or anything you like but in truth you and your ken have brought this on yourselves with your penny pinching profiteering at the state's and citizens expense. If you had invested appropriately in new technology,taken a modest amount of profit and served your customers as if you were a utility then there would have been no need to reign you in and enforce utility rules upon you.

Home server question

[VikingNation]

Does the ruling mean that broadband service providers are not able to block ingress/egress of traffic to servers hosted on the consumers network?

Is this really what the Constitution is for?

[Archtech]

"...In 2012, it insisted that the very idea of Net neutrality squished its First and Fifth Amendment right..."

As a foreigner I'm probably completely wrong. But isn't the Constitution getting to look very much like a Bill of Rights for immense corporations to enrich themselves by any means they choose? Just asking.

Re:Please explain

[Archtech]

Exactly when did Verizon begin to think they "own" the internet ?

Since they realised they can cut people off from it...

Far From Over

[Lord Flipper]

http://www.multichannel.com/blog/mcn-guest-blog/fccs-legal-gymnastics/388213/

The last mile should be regulated

[Brannon]

It's absurd for everyone to have parallel high-speed links into their homes to enable competition, just as it would be absurd to have multiple parallel sewage or electrical networks. Instead there should be a single last-mile network that is heavily regulated (including net neutrality) and then let the companies compete on everything else

Re:The last mile should be regulated

[sabri]

Instead there should be a single last-mile network that is heavily regulated (including net neutrality) and then let the companies compete on everything else

Yes. Totally agree there. And that shouldn't be a problem either: on the last mile there is no oversubscription or other type of bandwidth issue.

In some European countries, this is happening. The incumbent telcos have to allow competitor ISPs to colocate DSLAMs in their street cabinets against reasonable fees. The small ISP will then be able to use the copper wire connecting the CPE equipment directly to their own DSLAM.

I wish this was possible in my community here. I'd be the first one to start an ISP.

Just give me what you advertized and I paid for.

[amigabill]

From my point of view, it's not about freedom of their (Verizon's) speech, or about this being a good way to improve innovation and such. it's about what they advertized my service to be when I signed up, and as I pay for it. If I signed up for a 25Mbit/50Mbit plan, and you have plenty of capacity, then what right do you have to intentionally slow me down below that agreed upon and paid for speed? If you don't have the capacity to reliably provide the advertized, agreed and paid for speed, then why are you offering it? If you are taking on too many customers to continue to provide the advertized/agreed/paid for speed, then please stop taking more on until you are capable of reliably honoring your side of all agreements.

If you want to give us less than what you advertize, then stop advertizing higher speeds, and only advertize and sell what you are capable of.

I'm really getting tired of your Half-Fast B.S. arguments in favor of your bait-and-switch false-advertizing.

That's exactly the government's business.

[Brannon]

What makes you think otherwise? If the network is effectively a monopoly then the government has every right to regulate it.

Then move to Somalia.

[Brannon]

Problem solved.

Not practical to have multiple parallel networks

[Brannon]

just like we don't have multiple parallel sewage systems or electrical power distribution networks. There are multiple different restaurants--see the difference?

Response in Morse code required.

[lsatenstein]

When you have 20 to 40 percent profit margins, and your institutional investors call the shots, Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, etc. have to respond to these investors. If not, presidents, VPs and directors lose their heads.

Net Neutrality is fair. Absolutely fair. Netflix pays for the pipe it has, and the volume of transfered gigs. There is profit in that. And at the receiving end, that end-user pays for his connection and the bytes he accepts to receive. The first can't work without the second.

Why should there be differences where for the same pipe that was purchased, it now deserves a premium. And that reflects in the price the consumer has to pay.

Time to allow free commerce in the fibre world. Let local businesses, groups, municipalities, state organizations or federal organizations open to compete. The city electric companies have the distribution network as well. Let them compete.

In Europe, speed is around 10x faster, and at a much much lower cost than what an American pays for USA service.
 

Matyszczyk

[PJ6]

If we get him to say his name backwards, will he go away?

Cap

[tepples]

I currently get ~60 Mb up/down for $45/mo with my WISP.

How long can you keep a 60 Mbps without running into your monthly cap? The wireless Internet service providers I've looked at will cut you off after 10 GB in a month unless you insert coin to continue.