Slashdot Mirror
Net Neutrality Advocates Plan Protests For December 7 at Verizon Stores (techcrunch.com)
Jordan Crook, writing for TechCrunch: During yesterday's announcement of the upcoming vote, the FCC neglected to mention the historic 22 million comments on the issue, the majority of which were opposed to its rollback. In response, protests are being held on December 7 at Verizon retail stores across the country. The protests were organized by Demand Progress, Fight For The Future, and FreePress Action Fund. Here's what the protest organizers have to say on their event page: "Ajit Pai is clearly still working for Verizon, not the public. But he still has to answer to Congress. So we're calling on our lawmakers to do their job overseeing the FCC and speak out against Ajit Pai's plan to gut Title II net neutrality protections and give Verizon and other giant ISPs everything on their holiday wishlist.
Pai said from the get-go that public commentary would not impact his decision. He's making regulations that financially benefit him and his cronies, in direct opposition to both public welfare and public demand. It's clear that this is simply one more example of corporate hijacking of our political system -- they're just going through the motions to make it seem legitimate.
If you'd actually bothered to google the issue, instead of exposing yourself to nothing but "bitching", you could answer the question for yourself.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
If that asshole's pacemaker has a minimum bandwidth requirement to keep him safe, there is something critically wrong with that asshole's pacemaker.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
You paid for 100Mbps internet. But your ISP decides they don't like Hulu or Netflix. So they now charge you an extra $10 per month for both services. Want Spotify? That's another $5. Oh, people hate this? Ok. We won't charge you. We'll just limit your speeds to these services to 100kbps until each of them pay us for the privilege allow you access. Which will simply come back to you in increased subscription costs for each.
Never mind that you already paid for your 100Mb pipe. And all those services are paying for their fat pipes on to the Internet.
Most ISPs have already declared that is exactly what they want to do. And NN is the only thing stopping them.
I want people who complain to put forth something they think is REAL amidst a storm of FUD,
That's essentially trolling. If you really wanted information, you'd just go find it. What you want is to sneer at people. Good luck with that.
we'll see what actually plays out and see how valid your fears and concerns actually were.
That's already going to happen. We don't need your discount gauntlet test for that.
I think it's pretty telling you are not willing to commit to single negative aspect of NN being repealed.
I think it's pretty telling how laser focused you are at pissing on people you think are disagreeing with you. I haven't mentioned my feelings about NN in my reply to you because I don't care. The FCC will pass the measure, we'll have a couple years of ISPs trying to make as much hay out of it as possible, then a Dem admin will reverse it. It's all extremely yawnerrifc from my perspective.
Your actions speak louder than your (lack of) words...
Settle down, Beavis.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Hrmmm well lets see here for a short list of shenanigans from prior to 2015:
2005 - Madison River Communications was blocking VOIP services. The FCC put a stop to it.
2005 - Comcast was denying access to p2p services without notifying customers.
2007-2009 - AT&T was having Skype and other VOIPs blocked because they didn't like there was competition for their cellphones.
2011 - MetroPCS tried to block all streaming except YouTube.
2011-2013, AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon were blocking access to Google Wallet because it competed with their own wallet apps.
2012, Verizon was demanding Google block tethering apps on android because it let owners avoid their $20 tethering fee. This was despite guaranteeing they wouldn't do that as part of a winning bid on an airwaves auction.
2012, AT&T - tried to block access to FaceTime unless customers paid more money.
Oh and this:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=388863
Oh and multiple attempts to created various tierd network services.
If you can't see the very predictable trajectory that ISPs have plotted their path on, then you've been drinking too much of the Kool-Aid that's been dripping from the Republican party's nether regions.
Without net neutrality rules, Comcast is allowed to slow down Netflix traffic to the point where it's unusable, just because they feel like it. They're allowed to tell you "use our Xfinity streaming service instead", and you're allowed to switch to their competitor (which doesn't exist in your area).
Without net neutrality rules, Comcast is allowed to charge you extra money for a not-slowed-down-Netflix, and they're allowed to charge Netflix for that same privilege.
Without net neutrality rules, Comcast can make more money by giving you shittier internet access without you being able to do anything about it.
And if you think Comcast won't pursue new ways of making more money, I applaud your optimism.
If people want to actually get results start by:
1. Writing (hardcopy and sent by "snailmail") letters to public officials with formal-language grammar expressing displeasure and politely offering solution of law to override: district representatives for the House, state representatives for the Senate, and President
https://www.senate.gov/senator...
https://www.house.gov/represen...
https://www.whitehouse.gov/con...
2. It does not hurt to submit or virtually sign a petition here: https://petitions.whitehouse.g...
3. Make attempt to contact state level officials to make laws to override: States, under 10th Amendment are not without sovereignty in spite of Article I, Section 8. The FCC would need to take legal action against the state in order to invalidate such laws. It may be to note that Tom Wheeler lost a battle against Tennessee a few years back.
4. Where not restricted by legalized monopolies, either have local governments, or if not possible organized co-ops for internet access (a can of worms in and of itself, but then the customers and the owners will be the same).
5. If still wishing to do protests, make sure a reasonably large crowd also shows up at the the House of Representative local offices. Prominent is good, but keep everything peaceful and non-disruptive at whatever location and invite the local press.
6. If one suspects the FCC to be in the pockets of ISPs, simple discontinue all services of those providers
Whenever there is a massive political or PR campaign, it's not good. Yet for net neutrality it seems overwhelmingly good, yet it's still happening. You really have to stop and ask why.
Lets start with what everyone hates about the internet or is intimately connected to the internet:
Now the things we like about the internet:
Now what happens if net neutrality is removed:
So what happens next? Is that the end of the internet? Yes and no. Meshnet routers are already cheaper than cellphones. They are already being implemented in cities. There are rural networks not run by cable companies which will work with their local communities. The answer should be pretty obvious at this point: if people hate the internet enough but want the good it had back, they will build meshnets (Hell, you can already link your neighbors together for less than the cost of a monthly cable bill, on a faster connection, as a one-time hardware fee.) The only thing stopping this now is that there is no motive, people are complacent because the internet works and there's a critical mass aspect wherein not enough people are irritated with it yet.
So what happens when the removal of net neutrality inevitably makes people replace the internet with mesh networking:
But wait, because there's oh so much more:
No matter how you slice this, killing net neutrality is a good thing. It's going to be like ripping off a
Right. It's like how laws against breaking and entering hurt us. With B&E laws people can't enter your home without your permission and slip $1000 under your pillow!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I'm more mad that the public's complaints were so blatantly ignored. I honestly think Vladimir Putin is listening to his public more then the FCC is listening to us.
If the IPS's take it too far I have faith in those of us in IT to be able to work around the problem. Imagine if Netflix changed their browser player to pull their data from other media players much like now bittorrents work?
They can pass any law they want, I can still setup a VPN network to somewhere that it's filtered/throttled. They can't throttle VPN's because there's too many people who use them for work. Will it hurt my ability to steam movies? Maybe. I don't bother to pirate music or movies but if they take things too far.... No government agency is as powerful as a bunch of motivated nerds.
Netflix offered free hardware in order to reduce bandwidth usage which was causing ISPs trouble because they couldn't handle the amount of traffic that users were taking up when using Netflix. Basically they offered a reasonable solution to prevent the ISP from having to expand their network (because ISPs don't want to do this apparently) which would have cost them significantly more.
Netflix had enough servers and provisioned network capacity to handle the load. The ISPs didn't have enough network capacity to handle their users usage.
Can confirm: reading comprehension is still a difficult challenge for our 'cuck'-wielding brethren.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
But you have to be liberal to think protesting at his former employer will somehow be effective in effecting change.
Ken
Ok so I didn't do any research, I'm just going to ask. How is removing Title II from ISPs going to affect safe harbor and copyright infringement issues? Title II protects ISP from litigation when illegal activity is facilitated by their networks. If NN goes poof, and ISP's are no longer Title II, do they lose their protections against litigation, regarding facilitating criminal behavior?
They'll start doing what they were doing before 2015, like they did to Netflix. A major ISP (Comcast, IIRC) throttled Netflix's throughput for a few months. The issue with Netflix content appeared rather abruptly, and then after Netflix agreed to pay an undisclosed amount it magically went away - as if their pipes could suddenly, almost magically, could handle the traffic again.
There were no longer allowed to do that under the Net Neutrality rules, and with Ajit Pai saying F U to everyone not from an ISP that kind of abuse will happen again.
Also, as others have suggested, some companies like Netflix can offer appliances that host content on the ISP side to reduce traffic outside of their network making it possible for you to get a decent stream in the first place.
Net Neutrality would destroy that. Should regional caching services like Akamai also be illegal?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.