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FCC Announces Plan To Reverse Title II Net Neutrality (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The Federal Communications Commission is cracking open the net neutrality debate again with a proposal to undo the 2015 rules that implemented net neutrality with Title II classification. FCC chairman Ajit Pai called the rules "heavy handed" and said their implementation was "all about politics." He argued that they hurt investment and said that small internet providers don't have "the means or the margins" to withstand the regulatory onslaught. "Earlier today I shared with my fellow commissioners a proposal to reverse the mistake of Title II and return to the light touch framework that served us so well during the Clinton administration, Bush administration, and first six years of the Obama administration," Pai said today. His proposal will do three things: first, it'll reclassify internet providers as Title I information services; second, it'll prevent the FCC from adapting any net neutrality rules to practices that internet providers haven't thought up yet; and third, it'll open questions about what to do with several key net neutrality rules -- like no blocking or throttling of apps and websites -- that were implemented in 2015. Pai will publish the full text of his proposal tomorrow, and it will be voted on by the FCC on May 18th.

8 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. Be ready to pay more for internet by kwiecmmm · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yeah everyone's Netflix, Amazon, Apple and/or other internet costs are going to go up. Because ISP's are going to force them to pay more for the same bandwidth.

    But this will somehow increase competition, because a lot more internet providers are about to come into your area. Because somehow this was holding them back...

  2. Troglodytes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    All of them, and make no mistake Hillary would have been just as bad. We need to get government OUT of the issue. Wheeler was the closest thing we had to a gaurdian angel. 'Money is speech' has got to be reversed.

  3. This could get interesting. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 3, Informative

    I foresee all types of possibilities for abuse here beyond the obvious "pay the toll" bullshit. I can honestly see the real possibility of some ISPs slowing some political sites down to the point where they timeout in an attempt to prevent someone from donating money to a cause they don't like.

    Frankly, I would love to see them start collecting from the biggest social media sites lest they be heavily slowed because people need to stop using that shit.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  4. Re:What to talk about by OverlordQ · · Score: 5, Informative

    > Ajit Pai was an Obama appointee

    At the suggestion of Mitch McConnel. Trump is the one that made him Chairman, not Obama.

    --
    Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
  5. Ajit Pai you are a bag of douche. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is not the first time he's been in the news lately: Remember, "Broadband Market Too Competitive For Strict Privacy Rules"? Yeah, that was him.

    Someone please fire this prick!

  6. Re:The correct course of action by Anubis+IV · · Score: 4, Informative

    Let Congress pass a law [...]

    They did. It was the FCC charter. It explicitly gave the FCC the task of and granted them the authority to make decisions about how to classify companies. If Congress wants to pass a law doing what you say, they can, but in the meantime they've said that it is the FCC's job to make those decisions.

  7. Re:What to talk about by presidenteloco · · Score: 4, Informative

    No. F**k it. Internet pipes in your country are like the road network or the telephone network. It should be considered public infrastructure with egalitarian access.
    It's pretty F'ing simple.

    Getting rid of net neutrality regulations is like saying "It's ok. Just set up your highway robbery checkpoint in the middle of the on-ramp to the highway, but make sure to let your business partners limos through without paying the ransom."

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    Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
  8. Re:It's not just money by quonset · · Score: 5, Informative

    obama wanted single payer. what we got, 'obamacare', is actually modeled after 'romneycare'.. a republican created fuck-up put in place in Massachusetts

    Actually, what we got was based on, and followed very closely, the proposal put forth by the Heritage Foundation in 1989.

    As the above article shows, there were two key parts:

    1) All citizens should be guaranteed universal access to health care

    2) Mandate all households obtain adequate insurance

    And this article goes into more depth about how Republicans like Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich were pushing for mandated health insurance which required people, not employers, to buy insurance.

    In other words, Republicans got exactly what they wanted, and they're pissed.