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Tech Giants Rally Today in Support of Net Neutrality (theverge.com)
From a report: Technology giants like Amazon, Spotify, Reddit, Facebook, Google, Twitter and many others are rallying today in a so-called "day of action" in support of net neutrality, five days ahead of the first deadline for comments on the US Federal Communications Commission's planned rollback of the rules. In a move that's equal parts infuriating and exasperating, Ajit Pai, the FCC's new chairman appointed by President Trump, wants to scrap the open internet protections installed in 2015 under the Obama administration. Those consumer protections mean providers such as AT&T, Charter, Comcast, and Verizon are prevented from blocking or slowing down access to the web. Sites across the web will display alerts on their homepages showing "blocked," "upgrade," and "spinning wheel of death" pop-ups to demonstrate what the internet would look like without net neutrality, according to advocacy group Battle for the Net. But most of the pop-ups The Verge has seen have been simple banners or static text with links offering more information.
Sorry, but none of this happened prior to Obama's fiat grab of power and none of it will happen afterwards.
Does anyone REALLY think Amazon, Spotify, Reddit, Facebook, Google don't have the power to confront and shame AT&T, Charter, Comcast, and Verizon?
It will be messy and loud, but no one is going to have their porn downgraded.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
They can afford to pay AT&T whatever fees get extorted. The smaller players won't be able to pay those fees. No individual telco would bother to make Google rivalling products especially if Google and Netflix are paying them enough. If people can't access Google on AT&T they will switch to someone else. That can't be said for podunk rivals.
It's already 10:15AM EDT (7:15 PDT) and neither google.com or youtube.com has anything about it. Netflfix is at least running a banner and they were wishywashy about the protest.
Giant self-interested mega-companies rally for advantageous government rules.
Totally worthless.
Banner Ads and Pop-Ups? Really?
The ONLY thing that can sway the decision makers is Campaign Donations (and promises to fund their opponents) and Lobbying $$$.
That is how the "game" is played. The public be-damned.
AT&T, Verizon, et. al. have a head-lock on the Congress and the FCC and it isn't going to change any time soon until we all "put our money where our keyboards are".
Sad, but true.
Can you tell us what you were trying to express by using both terms?
Inability to think clearly. Choosing emotional reaction over thoughtful decision-making. Extreme entitlement mentality denied, leading to near mental and emotional breakdown.
More or less what you'd expect.
Until vertical integration locks them out. Imagine TW Cable still existed and merged back with Time Warner the media company. Bang, now only some news sources load fast and Hulu works a lot better than Netflix.
20 years ago major ISPs were not directly competing with content providers, so there was no financial incentive to fuck with traffic.
It wasn't until data services started to compete with traditional telecom services that this became a problem. For example, VoIP, which used an internet connection instead of POTS lines, could make long distance calls for basically the same price as local calls (or even less if both parties had VoIP service). This became a direct competitor to the phone companies which, at the time, were also internet service providers. The result? VoIP traffic became snarled, making it less useful, less desirable, than traditional phone services.
Now, all the major ISPs are also content providers; they have their own streaming services, their own search engines, sometimes their own shopping networks. They have every incentive to leverage their control over the access to the internet to hinder their competition.
Network Neutrality is about ensuring fair access. It's about preventing service providers from abusing their position as gatekeeper to stifle competition, whether by traffic tampering or charging fees to make them less competitive.
=Smidge=
Im Modding so posting this anon.
In the first 20 years there were literally hundreds or thousands of providers. Changes to the FCC definition of a phone line removed them from the common carrier status as well as the requirements that the phone company provide the service to mom and pop ISP's. So back then if AT&T tried to block something everyone would simply change to another ISP.
I ran ISP's back in the 1990's and you would not believe how many times the conversation about "Common Carrier" came up. At the time all the ISP's I know of operated on the belief that it applied to them, especially when dealing with Usenet. Because it meant we would not be responsible for the content of usenet stored on our servers.
OMG, how did we live in 2014?..
It's even more than that: the regulations had not taken effect yet, so even in 2015 and 2016 the Obama regulations were not in play.
Or, maybe we could actually research who's lobying against NN: https://www.dailydot.com/layer...
Apologies, that site has tons of ads. Someone please search more and find a better link.
Bottom line, after the reading I've done, I've decided that there are a lot of big companies out there that consider their interests in this issue to line up with "the little guy". So, they're really working honestly to protect it, publicly, and with self-interest at heart.
Of course it's all about the other big guys. Netflix wants Net Neutrality as well as the others because they want their traffic to be unimpeded at no extra cost to them. ISPs don't want it because it'll allow them to create other revenue streams.
But, if Net Neutrality benefits us little people, then the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
And considering the unethical business practices of the ISPs, I'd like to see them in pain - especially Comcast and AT&T.
We are repeatedly [seattletimes.com] told [nytimes.com], "net neutrality protects the little guy" — a notion made rather suspect by the concern of the giants like Amazon.
Well Amazon is talking about their customers so the fact that net neutrality benefits them as well as consumers (which are the "little guys") isn't all that suspect.
OMG, how did we live in 2014?..
You are aware that the fight for net neutrality precedes 2014 right? It wasn't until 2014 that the Court of Appeals decided that the FCC could not enforce it under Title I protections but could enforce it under Title II.
Translation: owners of the networking equipment and cables are prevented from doing what they want with their property. War is peace. Regulations are liberty.
No. Translation: All animals are equal. Some are more equal than others. Some owners decided they can charge more for premium access while other owners don't. For example, consumer ISPs like Verizon want to do it but Tier 1 providers like Level 3 don't.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
We are repeatedly told , "net neutrality protects the little guy" â" a notion made rather suspect by the concern of the giants like Amazon.
I don't see a conflict here.
Amazon offers an on-demand video streaming service. Verizon offers an on-demand video streaming service. Verizon ALSO controls access to these services for its customers. Without Network Neutrality there is nothing to prevent Verizon from either snarling Amazon's traffic (making their service lower quality), and/or charging Amazon more for the speed/bandwidth everyone else is getting by default (making them less competitive on price).
So of course Amazon and others have a financial stake in this. The "little guy" does, too, since they're the ones who will end up paying more for inferior service at the end of the day.
The other side is new companies (aka the "little guys") that may be able to bring something innovative and new to the market, but would be hindered by anti-competitive practices by ISPs. Imagine, for example, if the major ISPs were all already offering video hosting and streaming services before YouTube was a thing... and decided that the fledgling YouTube would have to pay extra for the speed and bandwidth they needed to operate...
And if you want proof-in-the-pudding that Network Neutrality is a good thing, just look back to the bad old days before POTS providers were classified as common carrier. Once the Telecommunications Act of 1996 kicked in, competition increased and telephone service prices (especially long distance) dropped significantly, because the owners of the copper now had to treat all traffic - including the traffic of their competitors - equally.
=Smidge=
That's funny, one by one over the last 2 years, all of my banking websites have decided to block my (now 2 year old) useragent and tell me to "upgrade". So now I just spoof it and everything works.
What the internet WOULD be like? hah.
They can afford to pay AT&T whatever fees get extorted.
But they don't want to pay. Also AT&T can charge high extortion rates.
. If people can't access Google on AT&T they will switch to someone else. That can't be said for podunk rivals.
Switch to who? Most ISPs have monopolies in their markets.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Forced "neutrality" hurts them none. To cause them actual pain, promote competition. Government regulations help incumbents — be they cabbies under threat of Uber, hoteliers hurting from AirBnB, or the etablished ISPs facing off would-be competition.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I have to guess that since the FCC policy is a US only policy (although it would likely affect those outside of the US also), this would explain why I don't see anything when accessing any of the sites listed.
What is being displayed on the various sites?
And I don't mean this story.
Imagine if pornhub, xhamster, etc... decided to band together and block all access from Congress (or even all of Washington D.C) for 24 hours from accessing their sites. Bonus points if they add some sort of family-values message to their site ("We at [website] have taken the necessary steps to prevent our elected representatives from accessing the ungodly smut they claim is destroying this great nation. You're welcome").
Now that might actually trigger some change!
Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM
There is really no competition in the ISP space. Two providers is not competition. Two is essentially sanctioned price-fixing. The consumer hasn't liked the way TV is distributed for a while now which has resulted in Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and many others. But they still all need to use the infrastructure that's owned by the cable and phone companies. If they can't charge high-bandwidth users more, they're just not going to upgrade it and you can't force them to either.
Hoes don't care for sweet words and enticement, they want money. So unless you throw some money at the whores in Washington, they won't listen.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Not sure why it's buried, but here's the link:
https://www.battleforthenet.co...
Net Neutrality is a function of Last Mile Monopolies. Fix the last mile problem, and you won't need Net Neutrality rules foisted on us by Government and all the special interest groups paying to have their interests represented in DC, at the cost of the electorate's interests.
Seriously, do you think, even for a second, that the Politicos in DC care a shit about Net Neutrality, even when they claim they do? They care about lining their pockets with Special Interest Cash to next years campaign and vacations.
We keep thinking Top Down is the ONLY solution to our problems, and the result is more problems.
Here is my Last Mile Solution: Last mile is run by local municipalities. Every house has a run back to a COLO facility where SEVERAL ISP offer their products and services. Every Individual has the right to pick the services and products of their choice. Netflix can offer "NET n FLIX" package where they give you all the Netflix and internet you want. Comcast can offer their "Triple Play" Voice/TV/Internet Package, and Direct TV/ATT, Verizon/Yahoo, and all the rest can offer up whatever they want.
Net Neutrality becomes a non-issue at that point. Because if Comcast blocks/throttles Netflix, then people leave to go to "NET n FLIX" package from Netflix. Problem solved without Government Decree that has serious unintended consequences. And all the unintended consequences in my proposal get sorted out by market and consumer choice forces.
The bonus side effect is that there will be people offering Creative offerings that are impossible now (a la carte programming)
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I think it's optimistic to think that something will happen even when 4-5 big companies bitch about it.
I also suspect this might be part of a new "distract and conquer" scheme, where the right wing* political elites make threats to things that matter in order to get some awful things past us. It's hard to take away social security, net neutrality, education, social safety net programs, sane drug laws, protection from discrimination, health care coverage, environmental protections, AND let the wealthy avoid paying their fair share of taxes individually because of push back. Do them all simultaneously though and you'll get some of it.
(* Yes, right wing, fuck off with that fake equivalence bullshit. The american left wing isn't doing anything nefarious at the moment, and the bad things they've done in recent history have mainly been because the right wing idiots had too much power to do the right thing)
The write-up this. If you wish to dispute it, you need to offer citations. When did the regulations about to be abolished come into effect?
Er? Please read up on the history before you comment.
How is this wrong?
Okay let's start out that everyone pays for a connection. Netflix pays Level 3. You pay your ISP. You pay for a Netflix subscription. Your ISP should deliver Netflix if you want; however, your ISP wants to charge Netflix to send you data that you and Netflix already paid to send. Is that simple enough?
So? Why should it be the concern of the government and the citizenry, what these private companies do?
Why should it be concern of the government if private companies are wronging the citizenry? Is that the exact question you are asking?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Then what was it like since you know all about it....
I got a pop-up message when I visited my web host provider, DreamHost, this morning.
Please upgrade your plan to proceed.
Just kidding. You can still get to this site *for now*. But if the FCC ends net neutrality, your cable company could charge you extra fees just to use the websites and apps you want. We can stop them and keep the Internet open, fast, and awesome if we all contact the U.S. Congress and the FCC, but we only have a few days left. Learn more.
What useragent are they looking for to tell you to upgrade?
The Trump administration could go one of two ways to fix our broadband infrastructure.
Carrot: Tax breaks and direct subsidies to build out networks with the requirement that all traffic is handled equally in a best-effort manner. This would dovetail nicely with his $1 Trillion infrastructure spending plans.
Stick: Anti-trust enforcement action - carriers using their monopoly status to harm competing services clearly violates all manner of anti-trust laws already on the books.
My guess is the carrot method is more palatable to Trump than the stick method.
Nothing other than my switching to XFinity or someone else available in my area, you mean?
The good old competition argument. That would be great if there was actually someone else available. Most areas only have 1 or 2 ISPs. Both ISPs are probably content providers too, so they will both be violating neutrality. We won't have real competition on ISPs so long as they are tied to telecoms, which are natural and regulatory monopolies.
Point is, they are not "little".
No, you've taken the statement out of context and twisting words. The term "little guy" means customer and startup web sites. Yes, neutrality protects "big guys" too, but that doesn't invalidate the point or make the statement wrong.
Are you saying, YouTube became a thing after 2015? Seriously?.. Really?..
No. Smidge204 did not say that. Seriously, really. He didn't.
Part of the problem is that more content these days is expected to be real time. 20 years ago most consumers were on dial-up and everything took forever to download. People were delighted with the fact that email could take minutes instead of days with snail mail. So an ISP slowing down your web browsing didn't have as much as effect as web browsing was slow. Slowing down your email to hours instead of minutes also didn't deter consumers.
The landscape today is much different. If Netflix or Hulu can't stream you content near real-time (with some delay in buffering), they doesn't have customers. Consumers want their media now and won't accept delays.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
After the giant list of major web businesses having a day of action - I have to say, the response seems incredibly underwhelming. Nothing on Wikipedia, nothing on Google or Amazon, Apple or Facebook - tiny banner on NetFlix - nothing on YouTube. I was expecting a "Day Of Action" where all of those major players would at least stick a popup in your face - or darken the site or some other very visible thing. To say I'm disappointed would be an understatement.
The ~500 daily visitors to my blog site will see a popup - but for all of the hooplah about a massive protest - I'm not seeing much.
Those few sites that have responded are mainly geek sites where you're preaching to the converted - or perhaps to the rationally opposed. The great mass of the "general public" aren't going to notice much.
Without a huge wave of protest - our politicians are just going to toe the party line - only by having anguished howls of outrage will anything happen.
www.sjbaker.org
Sites across the web will display alerts on their homepages showing "blocked," "upgrade," and "spinning wheel of death" pop-ups to demonstrate what the internet would look like without net neutrality.
Interesting, that's not what the web looked like for the first 20 years when there were no net neutrality rules...
For the first 10 years maybe. But in the past 10 years or so there most definitely HAS been some level of fuckery with various internet connections.
We've seen all manner of source based traffic prioritization.
We've seen connections intentionally slowed despite there being no load on the pipe.
We've seen practices that are more fitting for hollywood blockbuster involving some black cars, Italian accents and lines which all but stopped short of saying "That's a nice video you're streaming there. It's a shame it is now counting to an arbitrary limit that I just imposed on you. But hey I'm here to help. Either watch that video from my advert laden site or give me $15 extra and I'll make your worries temporarily go away.
If you think this hasn't been a problem then you haven't been paying attention.
20 years ago the average person's internet connectivity wasn't provided by one maybe two if your're lucky major players. Back in the dialup and early broadband era people had choices from dozens of providers. And in the early broadband era DSL was actually competitive with cable. DSL is a joke these days. These days DSL is comparable to the "Essentials" plans that cable companies will provide steeply discounted to those on public assistance. Now in most cases you are suck with one provider your monopoly cable company. Really the only other option is cellular, of which most plans are data caped to a ridiculously low cap that a weekend netflix binge could blow though, then your either stuck paying more per gigabyte or being throttled till your next billing cycle rolls around.
As one who worked recently for a regional cable co that was just recently gobbled up by a mega cable company. I can tell you for fact that It's becoming more and more into big cable's interests to prioritize their TV and IP streaming traffic over general internet traffic. They are out of bandwidth in their cable plants. This is why you are seeing cable companies drop analog channels and clear QAM digital channels that you could receive on your TV without a cable box and forcing you to rent boxes. They are switching to technologies like switched digital video that only sends the channel you are currently watching to your box rather than just blowing all the channels all the time down the coax. They need to free up bandwidth both on the TCP/IP side and the raw RF side one way or another
We are repeatedly [seattletimes.com] told [nytimes.com], "net neutrality protects the little guy" — a notion made rather suspect by the concern of the giants like Amazon.
Anyone who doesn't own the pipe itself is "little" in this regard. Just because Amazon has a net worth large enough to buy a small country doesn't mean he would happily hand over money to any schmuck who says "That's a fine connection you have there, it would be a shame if someone were to throttle it".
Big companies didn't get to be big companies by giving other companies charity, and size is not a defining factor on whether two companies can be aligned on a common issue.
OMG, how did we live in 2014?..
I'll tell you how we lived. We lived with constant stream of stories on Slashdot talking about providers dubiously throttling various things. Personally I lived with a provider who helpfully directed me to a shitty streaming service partially owned by them as an alternative to Netflix by arbitrarily creating a download limit for the internet and then not applying it to the site in question. I lived with a provider who throttled my uploads because I dared to use them and apparently paying for a 25/5 meant that using those 5 weren't "reasonable use" in their eyes.
Earlier than 2014 I remember providers fucking with routing tables to give game servers co-located in my city a worse ping than game servers on the other side of the country (which they owned). I remember receiving arbitrary connection reset packets when transfering via p2p except with certain networks.
I remember a lot of things getting progressively better the last few years.
Translation: owners of the networking equipment and cables are prevented from doing what they want with their property. War is peace. Regulations are liberty.
A monopoly with large market power has never been able to do what they want. Not in any country or any form of government around the world. To complain about this is just showing your ignorance.
The Net Neutrality Cheer
WHAT DO WANT????
(crowd) FREE STUFF!!!!
WHEN DO WE WANT IT?
(crowd)NOW!!!!
WHO SHOULD PAY FOR MY DOWNLOADING
(crowd)RICH PEOPLE
WHO IS THE RICH?
(crowd)NOT ME
HOW MUCH YOU MAKE?
(crowd)umm, Over $150,000?
(REST OF THE COUNTRY) STFU
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
Yes, right wing, fuck off with that fake equivalence bullshit.
There is no equivalence. What the left is doing is worse.
The american left wing isn't doing anything nefarious at the moment, and the bad things they've done in recent history have mainly been because the right wing idiots had too much power to do the right thing
So, somehow, Obama ordering a drone strike on an American citizen is because of the right wing?
Then Google would spin off Google fiber, and have the other tech Giants invest into them as well to run around installing fiber throughout America.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Sorry, where I live there is exactly ONE broadband ISP available. And because of municipal agreements established back in the 70s or 80s when cable first rolled into town, most communities around me are in the same situation. As far as I am concerned ISPs have positioned themselves as regional monopolies, and it is totally justified to classify them common carriers with all the government regulation that implies. 'freedom to innovate' for a handful of powerful internet companies, vs. 'freedom to innovate' for a virtually unlimited number of entrepreneurs? It's an easy choice. The internet has operated under 'option 2' for a couple decades now and produced amazing things: I'd rather see that continue than let Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, Charter etc. have free rein to set the rules.
Net neutrality is anti-Internet.
The Internet was created to be a communication system with a lot of routes that information can take.
Net neutrality is going to take down those routes.
Think of the Internet like your common road system.
You have highways, secondary roads, and house hold streets.
Net neutrality is taking out secondary roads, and house hold streets.
So the only thing we will have is highways.
Perhaps they might like it from a certain perspective, but managing that nightmare of agreements and constant presses for more money would bog them down in administration. When big companies begin devoting ever increasing levels of resources to admin/licensing/payoffs/etc they generally die not too long after. It also gives the ISP's an inordinate amount of control over the content providers, basically each ISP would be on a constantly increasing arc of pricing to see how much they could extort out of the content providers. It's like letting some warlords set up a checkpoint on a public road claiming that they're "protecting" it and its users via "tolls". Pretty soon every road would have similar checkpoints with each checkpoint charging more and more money eventually just taking everything of value that people who came across their path had.
The FCC is an American regulator. Someone did a study and found, after removing big business interests, almost no correlation between how the US federal government passes regulations and the desires of voters. It's not just gerrymandering, a huge patchwork of laws and nearly unlimited political spending that guarantee no one outside the two parties will have power, statistically the USA is not a democracy in anyway*. Just be lucky that today, there are big companies whose interests align with yours.
If we define democracy as the ability for people to change their government peacefully then Germany is the only democracy the US has supported in 70 years. (Japan has elections but the same party always wins)
The Net Neutrality "protest" is a poor attempt to mirror the Great Web Blackout of February 8-9, 1996 regarding the Communications Decency Act.
The difference of course is the CDA was an actual threat government infringement on online speech, as opposed to theoretical traffic allocations by private corporations, and frankly most of the protesting companies are really trying to use "net neutrality" as a negotiating tactic regarding the price of massive streaming video bandwidth (that those protesting companies profit from) between them and ISPs.
My belief remains the same in 2017 as it was in 1996: The Internet is best served by not having government intervention.
Without Network Neutrality there is nothing to prevent Verizon from either snarling Amazon's traffic (making their service lower quality), and/or charging Amazon more for the speed/bandwidth everyone else is getting by default (making them less competitive on price).
Yet, THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN.
ISPs know they are in the business of providing Internet service. They know they can't really take hobble Internet streaming competitors without pissing off their customers.
The Netflix speed index for the US continues to increase, now above 3 Mbps for all major ISPs in the country which gives you a fine H.264 HD signal for on-demand content. No one can see 4K resolution without a 100" display, so no real need for that yet.
And many ISPs are incorporating Netflix Open Connect caches to improve Netflix service - is this going to be an "illegal prioritization" of Netflix traffic over those who don't have in-ISP caches?
My suggestion - no regulations for now. If a problem comes along, and it is a REAL problem, THEN regulate.
Well, that sure is the kind of objective reporting we like!
Reports say otherwise. I am not sure why people all think they have one option in their areas and most people only have one option. True in the late 90's and early 2000's but ISP's do this crazy thing called expanding their markets to make more money and increase share prices.
when they banned the n* word and trolls find away around their block list.
There are TWO kinds of Net neutrality. There is the one we all wanted which means leave it alone, don't let a corporation get control and don't let government get control, then the OTHER kind which is what we really got; It's a FCC / Obama program to seize control over the Internet. I made a video of this 2 and a half years ago, but nobody got it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7WHoqsRuxU
At download speeds of 3 megabits per second (Mbps), which is the Federal Communications Commission’s current approximate standard for basic broadband service, 98 percent of the population had a choice of at least two mobile ISPs and 88 percent had two or more fixed ISPs available to them. . . At somewhat higher speeds, such as 10 Mbps, the typical person still is able to choose among two fixed ISPs . . .For example, only 37 percent of the population had a choice of two or more providers at speeds of 25 Mbps or greater; only 9 percent had three or more choices . . . Moreover, four out of ten Americans did not live where very-high-speed broadband service – 100 Mbps or greater – is available. Of those with access to broadband at this speed level, only 8 percent had access to two or more providers; 1 percent had access to three or more. Only 3 percent of the population had 1 Gbps or greater available; none had two or more ISPs at that speed.
The reports says there are multiple ISPs available for 3MB/s which the government considers broadband. If you are streaming Netflix, they recommend the minimum is 3MB/s for SD, 5MB/s for HD, and 25 MB/s for 4K. These are the minimums. If you live in a household with multiple users, good luck on streaming and using the internet at the same time. It also does not separate out between different types of ISPs like cable, DSL, satellite, or fiber. I considers them all as equal options even though they are not the same.
I am not sure why people all think they have one option in their areas and most people only have one option.
Because I've done the research in my area. I only have 1 cable ISP. I only have 1 DSL. I only have 2 satellite providers. I have 0 fiber. Satellite is out of the question based on speed. DSL provider has data caps and costs more money. So then there's cable. It's the only viable choice. Other than moving.
True in the late 90's and early 2000's but ISP's do this crazy thing called expanding their markets to make more money and increase share prices.
By expanding their markets you mean merging with or buying out rivals to form larger corporations and market share, right? That reduces competition not the other way around.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
If my ISP screwed with my connections, then why would I keep using them?
Just want to point out the irony that when 100,000s of people complain about this: nothing happens
Complaining rarely solves problems. Now if those 100,000's of people had actually done something, like fund a PAC, then they might have seen results.
I'll bite, what is it you think the left wing is doing that is worse and how does it excuse what the right wing is doing?
Why should it be concern of the government if private companies are wronging the citizenry? Is that the exact question you are asking?
Which ISPs are wronging their customer? How are they doing it? I have yet to see any evidence of ISPs actually doing things like slowing connections and blocking sites, just a lot of talk about what they could do.
In the scenario you presented, a customer would just switch to a different ISP. But there aren't any other ISPs to switch to you say. Well, that's because government is allowing the monopoly. Now you think government is going to help you with Net Neutrality? Net Neutrality will be used to censor content and dictate behavior to service providers and it won't be for your benefit. Scare tactics are being used to persuade people who think with their emotions into supporting government takeover of yet another industry.
If you doubt me, take a look at what was done to private health insurance with the minimal essential coverage mandate. The government now gets to dictate which types of policies insurers can offer to their customers. People that only wanted and needed catastrophic coverage can't get those policies. Post-menopausal women have to pay for maternity coverage. People that abstain from drugs have to pay for rehabilitation coverage.
Thank you! I can't believe people are just buying into these claims of harm despite there being on evidence it's actually happening. Net Neutrality is a solution to an imagined problem.
At download speeds of 3 megabits per second (Mbps), which is the Federal Communications Commission’s current approximate standard for basic broadband service,
The FCC defines broadband as 25 Mbps down and 3Mbps up: https://www.theverge.com/2015/...
3 Mbps down is no longer considered broadband.
For one you skipped over the numbers of areas where multiple vendors of 10MB/s is available. Also when it say "fixed" satellite is removed from the equation.
You admit you have options in your area but then say they are not viable to you. Viability and availability are two different things. Add to that you don't seem to think you can use one ISP off the other to negotiate a lower price out of one. That is done ALL THE TIME. I call yearly to get mine lowered and I am not talking 10 bucks or so. I get them to drop it in the 30 to 40 dollar range. It's pretty easy to do if you can stick to your guns and have even a drop of negotiating skills.
Lastly, there has been TONS of fiber roll out across the country. Maybe you live far out in the country, but even the edges of suburbia here have fiber and the ISP providers paid to string the lines.
Why should it be concern of the government if private companies are wronging the citizenry? Is that the exact question you are asking?
Yup, that is what some naive people are asking. There has been a very strong push by political parties to make regulation seem evil, and to trick people into thinking that regulation is anti-competitive. The political parties however are funded by these corporations who do not want competition, who do not want to play fair, and who do not want any change to the status quo. So you get the public being told that any interference by the government is bad, despite clear and unambiguous history showing that deregulation causes more abuse by companies.
They're taking marching orders from their political leaders, and those leaders take marching orders from corporations. I've been seeing a big upsurge in astroturfing trolls recently, always ready to deny common sense and accuse anyone who disagrees as stooges of past political leaders (they *always* make it about politics). It's not even idealism gone sour anymore, instead these are contrarians looking for a fight anywhere they can get it.
Yet, THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN.
Except when it does.
Not the first time either
Those are the things that caused Network Neutrality to become an issue. I'm sure there's more, more subtle examples that have been less widely publicized too.
Now imagine if there was explicitly no legal framework to prevent this. Imagine if it was not only expressly legal but accepted. There would be no competition for online services, no innovation, and higher prices for inferior service.
So when you say shit like this:
If a problem comes along, and it is a REAL problem, THEN regulate.
You clearly have your head in the sand.
=Smidge=
Because, if you're one of the vast majority of Americans, you don't actually HAVE an alternative?
I mean, I suppose you could get DSL in most places still, but you're still not going to be streaming video or anything like that.
Here's a challenge for you: If you live in the US, list all of the ISPs available in your area that provide download speeds 3Mbit or better.
=Smidge=
They can afford to pay AT&T whatever fees get extorted.
Why the hell should Netflix, google, et al pay twice for their traffic?
Also the thing with extortionists is that you pay them once and soon enough they are at your door again asking for money.
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld. You never get rid of the Dane.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the (supposed) good of its victims may be the most oppressive
Freedom fighters, not trolls. Censorship is obscene and words/sounds are not inherently good or bad. Remove the censorship and watch the use of the word drop.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
-Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Oh and nigger.
I know that you were and are a nigger.
Which ISPs are wronging their customer? How are they doing it? I have yet to see any evidence of ISPs actually doing things like slowing connections and blocking sites, just a lot of talk about what they could do.
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/186576-verizon-caught-throttling-netflix-traffic-even-after-its-pays-for-more-bandwidth
Your not defending anything. You are just propagating the use of language designed to dehumanize people. I on the other hand defend your eight to be a little dick asshole. I will also defend the right of anyone who decides to express themselves by beating your little bitch ass. Not because I think you should be censored, hell say whatever the hell you want, but at the same time, you should have to also accept the personal responsibility that comes with being a little punk ass pecker.
Oh little pecker wood come up with some new words, you are boring people.
Huh... I kinda like my DSL. It is 1.5 up and 12.5 down. I pay like $35/mo for it. I'm pretty happy with the speeds, price, and competition. The PUC ensures I can get service from anyone willing to provide it. I can, and have, switched providers. I get ~15 down, by the way. I pay for 12.5.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I am on the side of a mountain. I am many miles from a small village. I stream multiple videos, even at once, here. I have a list of dozens. I have DSL. I can use any providers I damned well please, so long as they are willing to service me. Most of them are. They don't even have to have a presence in the State.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I do not care much about net neutrality - not enough to put much thought or effort into a campaign for or against it. I am not interested in anyone's streaming videos, and, if people had enough sense to omit the ads and keep data usage to a minimum (not quite the crowd behind the latest push for neutrality), I would generally be content with the sort of speeds I was getting years ago out of dial-up (reasonably fast access to text and small or compressed pictures, with large downloads completed in a few hours or days). In principle, I would oppose neutrality as an impingement of various liberties and may even appreciate the option of preferential treatment if I should want low-latency access to something, but that would have to involve omitting lots of facts and details from the assessment.
Doing something to reverse the corruption of state officials and the prohibitions of municipal internet services in many places should be considered a far higher priority than net neutrality. If you can set up muni Internet, then by all means, let the major carriers trash their own services in any way they please (so long as they are not breaking their own contracts), then simply not buy it.
If the major carriers are to have a state-enforced monopoly anyway (conduits under and cables over public properties and "ownership" of electromagnetic spectrum), then at the very least, neutrality should be the rule, as should service at some basic level which is free of charge for all who request it, with timely support, and without carrier self-promotion.
I pay $45 a month and get 200down/20up on cable. That's why DSL doesn't compete.
To add to that as well, on my cellular though tmobile i can quite easily get 60down/15-30up. Other than the monthly caps it's still better than DSL
Words are merely sounds. Sounds cannot be good or bad.
As for the ass beating, you're welcome to try little boy. You're also welcome to the hole I'll put into your head, you scrawny, insecure, freedom-hating nigger.
I pay $30/month for 20Mbps down and 1Mbps up DSL + true landline with all features and unlimited calling. I don't need more bandwidth and no cable company is going to optimise your line for you. My ISP has my line tweaked to my exact, personal specifications. I get like 5ms ping time to google.com, how about you?
It's hilarious when people like you try to act tough. Shut the fuck up, nigger.
Viability and availability are two different things
Fine. Until I have multiple -viable- choices at my location, as far as I am concerned there is no meaningful competition. And I am fine with having that single 25Mbit broadband ISP, that does service my area, regulated up the wazoo. Regulate them until they are crying in their sleep and begging for mercy. Fine with me. They CREATED the circumstances that made them a regional monopoly, and they fight hook and nail to keep it that way (look at all the places the big players have stomped on municipal broadband initiatives, or fought against fair and reasonable access to infrastructure like telephone poles.) They get no sympathy from me.
For one you skipped over the numbers of areas where multiple vendors of 10MB/s is available. Also when it say "fixed" satellite is removed from the equation.
Now I know you didn't bother to read it. I didn't skip over the numbers. Here is the entire paragraph:
At somewhat higher speeds, such as10 Mbps, the typical person still is able to choose among two fixed ISPs. The typical person also has the option of choosing among three mobileISPs. At even higher speeds, however, the number of providers drops off dramatically. For example, only 37 percent of the population had a choice of two or more providers at speeds of 25 Mbps or greater; only 9 percent had three or more choices
You admit you have options in your area but then say they are not viable to you. Viability and availability are two different things
So you're saying I should pick internet that I can't really use. In this discussion since we are talking about streaming videos, you'd want me to pick an ISP that can't reliably let me stream. At that point why don't you include dial-up.
Add to that you don't seem to think you can use one ISP off the other to negotiate a lower price out of one. That is done ALL THE TIME.
And how do you know I didn't negotiate? You can't know, can you? I can get a better price for 6 months, even a year. Heck I can get them to throw in free boxes. For a locked contract. The problem is that after the initial term, the price does way up and I'm stuck with that price long enough for them to make lots of money off me.
. I call yearly to get mine lowered and I am not talking 10 bucks or so. I get them to drop it in the 30 to 40 dollar range. It's pretty easy to do if you can stick to your guns and have even a drop of negotiating skills.
Well good for you. You must live in one of those areas where the ISP knows you can go to another one. My ISP knows I can't.
Lastly, there has been TONS of fiber roll out across the country. Maybe you live far out in the country, but even the edges of suburbia here have fiber and the ISP providers paid to string the lines.
OMG. All this time I've been waiting even begging for fiber. Little did I know it was always available---Except that it's not. Fiber has been rolling out TO CITIES across the country. They haven't been rolled out to all neighborhoods. If I lived 2 miles away I could get fiber but not where I live. Same thing with ISPs. If I move I can get tons more options in my city. But not my neighborhood.
I find it funny that you think that I haven't been wanting to get fiber all this time and you know something about fiber availability in my area that I didn't know. I had hope that Google Fiber would shake things up but it hasn't been rolled out to enough cities and places for the other ISPs to do something about it. However, where Google Fiber has been rolled out, the other ISPs certainly did start to offer it to those places. But Google Fiber is not being rolled out to where I live.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Which ISPs are wronging their customer? How are they doing it? I have yet to see any evidence of ISPs actually doing things like slowing connections and blocking sites, just a lot of talk about what they could do.
I would say you don't read the news or are lying about it.
Would you say Comcast suing Chattanooga to prevent it from offering fiber more than talk?
If we stick to just his alone, there are more examples
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The date of the report is December 2014 so at the time of the report, the FCC considered 3MB/s as broadband.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Except I'm quite happy with my throughput and costs. I am perched on the side of a mountain. I'm pretty content with this level of service. I don't even need any more speed.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
In the 2013-2014 incident, Netflix purchased transit from Cogent, which had a settlement-free peering arrangement with Comcast. Shortly after Cogent began delivering Netflix traffic requested by Comcast subscribers, Cogentâ(TM)s routes into Comcast's network started to congest, reaching a level where it began to affect the performance of Netflix streaming for Comcast's subscribers.
Comcast suggested that Netflix pay for the connectivity required to deliver the content to the Comcast network. They did. Everything is fine now.
This is the way the networks that make up the Internet have been operating since the dawn of the Internet. There have always been peering versus paid connectivity disputes (going back to DANTE/EUNet in 1994, Digex/Agis in 1996, Cogent/Level3 in 2005, Level3/Comcast in 2010, etc.).
Networks have occasionally cut each other off in these disputes. The value of having access to the entire Internet helps these disputes resolve quickly, with the party who benefits economically most typically paying up (in this case, Netflix, who makes subscription money in exchange for deluging end user networks with huge amounts of video traffic).
Thank you! I can't believe people are just buying into these claims of harm despite there being on evidence it's actually happening. Net Neutrality is a solution to an imagined problem.
And what proof would you accept of harm? Would an ISP suing a city so that it didn't provide broadband to residents be harm for you?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The elites on the right are attempting to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else. A shameful state of affairs by any measure, but the elites on the left are attempting to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else, while simultaneously fomenting hatred of their opposition for engaging in the same conduct and attempting to disarm everyone who might stand in their way.