Senate Republicans Introduce Anti-Net Neutrality Legislation (thehill.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced a bill Monday to nullify the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules. "Few areas of our economy have been as dynamic and innovative as the internet," Lee said in a statement. "But now this engine of growth is threatened by the Federal Communications Commission's 2015 Open Internet Order, which would put federal bureaucrats in charge of engineering the Internet's infrastructure." Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), and James Inhofe (R-Okla.) co-sponsored Lee's bill. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai introduced his own plan last week to curb significant portions of the 2015 net neutrality rules that Lee's bill aims to abolish. Pai's more specific tack is focused on moving the regulatory jurisdiction of broadband providers back to the Federal Trade Commission, instead of the FCC, which currently regulates them.

Comments

Senator? Clean up your own shit first!

[Opportunist]

I have no idea what party the one belongs to that issued this letter here. But it was the first time I saw a senator actually write something sensible about "this computer stuff".

Clean up your own act before you try to mess with the rest of the internet, will ya?

Re:Senator? Clean up your own shit first!

[Joce640k]

"this engine of growth is threatened by the Federal Communications Commission's 2015 Open Internet Order, which would put federal bureaucrats in charge of engineering the Internet's infrastructure."

What a load of doublespeak bollocks.

Either the person who wrote that is lying or they have no idea what the Internet is.

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/net...

Re:Senator? Clean up your own shit first!

[Thud457]

huh, with the exception of Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), none of these jugheads are from what I would consider in any way a tech state, that might have a chance of knowing what the fuck they're talking about. Sad.

I see a lot of failed red states with Republican governors that receive more money from the federal government than they submit in taxes on that list.

Re:Senator? Clean up your own shit first!

[Oswald McWeany]

huh, with the exception of Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), none of these jugheads are from what I would consider in any way a tech state, .

I don't think there is a state in the union where every member is well versed in tech, nor a state where no member is. I don't think you can judge a senator's tech-savviness based on his home state. I'd bet 95% of politicians are not tech-savvy. They tend to be older individuals, and also come from backgrounds not dependent in tech. There are exceptions, but most of them aren't tech savvy.

Re:Senator? Clean up your own shit first!

[Gr8Apes]

I'd say that every single one of those sponsors, and Ajit Pai specifically, should be recused from anything touching technology and the internet. They are either so woefully ignorant of all aspects related to technology that they are similar to an orangutang performing brain surgery, or they are attempting to criminally line their pockets. There does not seem to be a middle ground that explains their stance.

Re:Senator? Clean up your own shit first!

[Creedo]

It is interesting that you start with this statement against the government designing networks:

Net Neutrality is anything but. It is government designed networking. Last thing we need is more government interference.

And end with the solution of.....governments designing networks:

This is easily solved, by allowing municipalities to build out common infrastructure that can be used by anyone to any provider.

It seems to me that the easiest way out is to simply declare that anyone who is running a line to an end user is a common carrier and required to lease that line to anyone the end user wishes to connect to without preference. We call that concept...."net neutrality."

Re:Senator? Clean up your own shit first!

[HornWumpus]

Government set rules doesn't mean a level playing field either. It just makes the game into lobbying. In the long term, in the American political system, it _guarantees_ regulatory capture.

I don't see monopolies in most markets. Oligopolies are bad, but they don't do what you describe, in fact oligopolies pretty much guarantee that any ISP that tried would be punished on the market.

If what you believed was true, Coke and Pepsi would have long since raised their prices to monopoly levels. (Think of the wireless ISPs as Shasta, RC etc).

Monopolistic behavior attracts new market players, the last thing oligopolists want.

Re:Senator? Clean up your own shit first!

[Creedo]

Oh, cool. I wasn't aware that local governments were incapable of being completely corrupted with crony capitalism. Good to know!

It's the opposite land gang!

[H3lldr0p]

Up is down! Left is Right! Freedom is servitude!

Again, this is another case where these people are being paid to misunderstand the situation because it profits someone else much more if they do. The sad part is that they've been put in a position of power. Hopefully this bill never makes it out of committee, let alone gets scheduled for a vote.

Isn't Ajit evil enough?

[TimothyHollins]

Sounds like Ajit wasn't invited to the latest meeting at Mt. Doom.

Witness the DoubleSpeak

[WheezyJoe]

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) [says] "...now this engine of growth is threatened by the Federal Communications Commission's 2015 Open Internet Order, which would put federal bureaucrats in charge of engineering the Internet's infrastructure."

What a heaping pile of horseshit, afloat in a vat of raw sewage. Did the good senator's staff come up with this on their own... or did they perform a ritual sacrifice to enlist assistance from the Demon? Show me their hands... this statement was written in blood and one of Lee's staffers is missing a finger.

Let's try and fix this, shall we? Now this engine of growth is threatened by would-be monopolists and their crony politicians who would put marketers and profiteers in charge of monetizing the Internet's infrastructure to squeeze the highest prices from users of the Internet in return least possible investment .

Re:Something else that's anti-progress

[Joce640k]

It's gotta be a troll. Not even the most clueless lawyer would write "GPL = Gnu Protective License".

An us versus them mentality.

[Gravis Zero]

The bill is unlikely to receive support from Democrats in the Senate.

[...]

A full repeal of the rules would be a worst case scenario for Democrats.

The whole point is that a full repeal would be the worst case scenario for everyone except extortionist ISPs.

I find it disappointing that the actually matter at hand isn't being addressed in anything but vague quotes.

Re:Which they should. The FTC has a good track rec

[WheezyJoe]

Not so fast. AFAIK, jurisdiction over the Internet has been removed from the FTC, and it would take an act of Congress to put it back... and that sure as shit don't look likely. Any talk of the FTC, for now, is a head-fake excuse for gutting the FCC and letting Comcast and its ilk get drunk and party at your expense.

Face it, ladies. The Internet is the new telephone system - the FCC should regulate it as a common-carrier. Period. That makes it boring to the carriers, gutting a lot of "opportunities" to squeeze extra money out (like selling your browsing histories), but too fucking bad. The Internet ain't no luxury anymore - shit, your grandma needs it just to get her goddamn meds.

Besides, the FTC is not invulnerable to politics. Maybe they don't have a politically ambitious loud-mouth tool as Chairman who wants nothing more than to see himself on TV, but a GOP-controlled everything can muzzle the FTC, and they will, if the price is right.

What makes fast lanes attractive?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing that will make people pay for fast lanes is a painfully slow lane. So how does a lack of net neutrality incentivize broadband investments?

It's like getting rid of traffic jams by selling left lane access separately.

Re:Internet was a failure until 2015?

[Shotgun]

I think the difference is that local cable companies began acquiring monopolies across wide areas, and then began trying to leverage those monopolies to extort money from large content providers.

Either the issue of regional consolidation must be addressed, or net neutrality. If I can switch to a different ISP, I'll switch to one that doesn't put a choke on my choice to access Netflix. But, if my only choice is between the latest iteration of Time-Warner or that 28k modem....well, the regional monopoly has me across a barrel, doesn't it?

I do agree, though. If the FTC is keeping the monopolies in check, there is no need for the FCC.

Re:Not wrong, but don't forget

[eheldreth]

I was young when the breakup happened but I certainly remember it's fall out. I have no idea why you think the government would need to set rates just because it forced the separation of the various corporate divisions. In most civilized areas that's known as a straw man argument.

If internet services and cable access services where separate there's no reason to believe a new monopoly would form. Much like dial up before you would be able to pick any ISP you wanted for your internet needs. Local monopolies for cable providers would likely continue because of the nature of the municipal agreements in place but internet service would have no such restrictions. In fact it would be nearly impossible to impose such a restriction. It would be like your town telling you what VPN provider you must use.

Beyond that not everyone is lucky enough to live somewhere like you. In my area (We would consider 20,000 a largish city) we have exactly one cable company (spectrum formerly TWC) and a phone company that couldn't offer reliable DSL if their lives depended on it. We have no competition, we have no choices. We pay top dollar for bottom of the barrel service. If I cancel my cable service and keep my internet it would actually make my bill higher.

What we do have is a local company trying to roll out fiber to home one town over (An ex dialup turned business provider). Because of the anti competitive nature of the cable industry they are being blocked, bullied, and sued at every turn. How dare they offer people a service they want!