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FCC Chairman Calls Net Neutrality a 'Mistake' (theverge.com)

Posted by msmash on from the net-neutrality-debate dept.

FCC chairman Ajit Pai said today that net neutrality was "a mistake" and that the commission is now "on track" to return to a much lighter style of regulation. The Verge adds: "Our new approach injected tremendous uncertainty into the broadband market," Pai said during a speech at Mobile World Congress this afternoon. "And uncertainty is the enemy of growth." Pai has long been opposed to net neutrality and voted against the proposal when it came up in 2015. While he hasn't specifically stated that he plans to reverse the order now that he's chairman, today's speech suggests pretty clearly that he's aiming to. [...] Pai's argument is that internet providers were doing just fine under the old rules and that the new ones have hurt investment.

14 of 319 comments (clear)

  1. FIX SLASHDOT ALREADY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Godamn ads covering the content!

  2. Companies doing fine; not comsumers by sanosuke001 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The job of the government shouldn't be to make sure companies can make as much money as they possibly can but to protect the citizens. Net Neutrality aimed to make the playing field even for everyone. I guess he's okay with Comcast/Charter/etc reaming us.

    --
    -SaNo
    1. Re:Companies doing fine; not comsumers by hawguy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And the rulings, as enacted, did no such thing and did NOT protect the citizenry.

      AT&T and Verizon still gave preferences to their content through their ISP connections and Google, Facebook and Twitter all block and censor content and access to webpages at their hearts desire - customers be damned.

      A monopoly (or duopoly, triopoly) ISP should not be able to give preference to any of "their" content. They shouldn't control both the pipes and the content.

      If you don't like Google's "censorship", then you're free to use Bing or another search engine. But if, for example, AT&T has a deal with Google, they may force you to use Google even though you'd rather use someone else -- and sometimes AT&T is your only option for ISP service due to the huge barriers to entry to becoming an ISP.

    2. Re:Companies doing fine; not comsumers by kqs · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Net Neutrality" became a thing as a result of Netflix trying (and failing) to bully Comcast into peering agreements by appealing to the public.

      Yeah, I hate when huge companies bully helpless startups like Comcast.

      A more accurate description: Comcast is being paid by you and me to deliver the internet, including netflix. But comcast sells movies, so netflix is a competitor. So they decided to limit the traffic from netflix to their customers, so that netflix movie quality would be terribly but comcast movie quality would be good.

      Netflix offers free caches to solve this problem, and free peering to solve this problem, but comcast doesn't want to solve this problem, because to them it is a feature.

      In a free market we could move to another ISP. In my case, I could also use Verizon... who is doing the same crap as comcast. ISPs are a natural monopoly, based on the economics and physics of running cables.

      With net neutrality, all companies can compete based on quality. Without net neutrality, vertically-integrated ISPs have an major advantage. Now, you may like government picking winners and losers, but I'm a fan of market competition, so I choose net neutrality.

  3. No Mention of Customers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Pai's argument is that internet providers were doing just fine under the old rules..."

    This tells you everything you need to know about Pai's priorities. When the customers don't even merit a mention in a position statement, you know the FCC has been entirely co-opted to a corporate agenda.

    The lobbyists have won. Kindly tell me where the nearest lobbyist pocket is so that I can fill it with cash, cocaine and hookers. Who will think of the poor, poor lobbyists?!

  4. Wrong Definition of Neutrality by sycodon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think it would be better if they simply stated that:

    1. If you advertise X speed, then the users gets X speed, every time, all the time.
    2. Get rid of this, "Up To" bullshit. no one is interested in some speed you might get once in a while.
    3. No traffic is EVER restricted for ANY reason.
    4. If you can't support your sales pitch, then either build out to where you can or change your pitch.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    1. Re:Wrong Definition of Neutrality by Baron_Yam · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I disagree with point 3. There are filtering measures required to combat spam, botnets, DDOS attacks, etc.

      You want to move those costs as close to the source as possible to put pressure on them to eliminate the problem. A totally unfiltered Internet just means the consumer pays for a choked pipe they can't actually use.

  5. Re:Good way to kill the golden goose! by Doke · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Charging content providers for bandwidth instead of end users is the opposite of the right idea.

    Charging content providers for bandwidth in addition to end users is the opposite of the right idea.

  6. What ads? by sjbe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've been flagging every as I could as "covering content".

    You see ads? I have them all blocked and never see any. No I don't give a shit about slashdot's bad business model. I'd happily pay a subscription but they can't be bothered to give me the option. So fuck 'em and the ad networks they rode in on.

    1. Re:What ads? by Gilgaron · · Score: 4, Funny

      My workplace blocks the ads so we can all be very productive on Slashdot

  7. And I'm fairly sure that by jenningsthecat · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Net Neutrality calls Ajit Pai "a mistake". I'm with Mr. Neutrality on this one!

    uncertainty is the enemy of growth

    Unchecked growth is a cancer - it needs a few more enemies. Besides, uncertainty favours innovation.

    Pai’s general philosophy is that the commission shouldn’t involve itself with basically anything unless there’s a huge market failure

    Umm... shouldn't you be trying to prevent "a huge market failure" Mr. Pai, rather than getting involved after the fact? Also, if you ask your constituents, (you know, the people whose interests you're supposed to protect - not to be confused with the corporations from whom you're currying favour), I'm pretty sure they'll tell you that the market is already in a huge state of failure.

    Ajit Pai - just another self-serving disaster on the American political scene.

    --
    'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
  8. Re:How were consumers not dong fine??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, I can:

    https://consumerist.com/2014/02/23/netflix-agrees-to-pay-comcast-to-end-slowdown/
    https://www.extremetech.com/computing/186576-verizon-caught-throttling-netflix-traffic-even-after-its-pays-for-more-bandwidth

    I'm sure there is more.

  9. Re:How were consumers not dong fine??? by Travis+Mansbridge · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Net Neutrality was the de-facto law of the land until ISPs began to upset the balance, beginning with the Comcast/Netflix debacle. This is the functional, traditional way it has worked, and that is why we cannot point to many distinct problems yet, but if you look just below the surface it isn't hard to take this to it's logical conclusion and see that ISPs will jump at the chance to use this as another way not to provide more or better service, but in fact to provide less or worse service, so that they might hold decent service at a premium (or restrict it to their own sites, applications, various new corporate sub-internets that will emerge as a result of this preference for restricting traffic).

  10. In other news... by whiskeyzulu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Random Citizen Calls FCC Chairman a 'Mistake'