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ISP Disclosures About Data Caps and Fees Eliminated By Net Neutrality Repeal (arstechnica.com)
In 2015, the Federal Communications Commission forced ISPs to be more transparent with customers about hidden fees and the consequences of exceeding data caps. Since the requirements were part of the net neutrality rules, they will be eliminated when the FCC votes to repeal the rules next week. Ars Technica reports: While FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is proposing to keep some of the commission's existing disclosure rules and to impose some new disclosure requirements, ISPs won't have to tell consumers exactly what everything will cost when they sign up for service. There have been two major versions of the FCC's transparency requirements: one created in 2010 with the first net neutrality rules, and an expanded version created in 2015. Both sets of transparency rules survived court challenges from the broadband industry. The 2010 requirement had ISPs disclose pricing, including "monthly prices, usage-based fees, and fees for early termination or additional network services." That somewhat vague requirement will survive Pai's net neutrality repeal. But Pai is proposing to eliminate the enhanced disclosure requirements that have been in place since 2015. Here are the disclosures that ISPs currently have to make -- but won't have to after the repeal:
-Price: the full monthly service charge. Any promotional rates should be clearly noted as such, specify the duration of the promotional period and the full monthly service charge the consumer will incur after the expiration of the promotional period.
-Other Fees: all additional one time and/or recurring fees and/or surcharges the consumer may incur either to initiate, maintain, or discontinue service, including the name, definition, and cost of each additional fee. These may include modem rental fees, installation fees, service charges, and early termination fees, among others.
-Data Caps and Allowances: any data caps or allowances that are a part of the plan the consumer is purchasing, as well as the consequences of exceeding the cap or allowance (e.g., additional charges, loss of service for the remainder of the billing cycle).
Pai's proposed net neutrality repeal says those requirements and others adopted in 2015 are too onerous for ISPs.
-Price: the full monthly service charge. Any promotional rates should be clearly noted as such, specify the duration of the promotional period and the full monthly service charge the consumer will incur after the expiration of the promotional period.
-Other Fees: all additional one time and/or recurring fees and/or surcharges the consumer may incur either to initiate, maintain, or discontinue service, including the name, definition, and cost of each additional fee. These may include modem rental fees, installation fees, service charges, and early termination fees, among others.
-Data Caps and Allowances: any data caps or allowances that are a part of the plan the consumer is purchasing, as well as the consequences of exceeding the cap or allowance (e.g., additional charges, loss of service for the remainder of the billing cycle).
Pai's proposed net neutrality repeal says those requirements and others adopted in 2015 are too onerous for ISPs.
$0.99 / month internet!
(gets bill)
$0.99 Monthly Internet
$9.99 Facebook access fee
$9.99 Google access fee
$19.99 Slashdot access fee
$29.99 Porn access fee
$45.00 $1.00 per gigabyte fee. 45gb used
$9.99 Convenience fee
$5.00 Bill print fee
$5.00 Electronic payment fee
--------
135.94 due now or we cut you off.
Just add {In Space!} to anything.
is really a blow-up doll for ISPs.
Coup d'état
Yes, I'm sure the ISPs will refuse to squander their newly-increased profits and lower customer prices as a result. This is because we live in Fairy Tale land and not Reality.
What the fuck is this? It's too onerous on ISPs to tell people the price of the product they're buying? HOW THE FUCK ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO CHARGE PEOPLE IF THEY DON'T KNOW THE FUCKING PRICE? And it's too onerous for ISPs to tell people about data limits? REALLY? REALLY?
Here's an idea: when the Democrats inevitably win, for once maybe instead of merely slightly going in the right direction, they actually go further and implement regulations that aren't just fair, but punish ISPs for lobbying for this bullshit.
I mean: ISPs will be:
1. Required to do free peering.
2. Must provide, among other services, a basic FCC specified service at a set price with a fixed installation fee. Initially 1Mbps up/down for $10 a month with a $50 installation fee.
3. Legally obliged to provide service within two weeks of any request in their designated service area, or face fines.
3.1 Local governments specifically allowed by FCC to provide service to customers not any active ISP's service area. 4. Must tier service only by bandwidth and nothing else.
4.1. No data caps or overages. Throttling only allowed to temporarily deal with network congestion and must not lead to worse service than the basic FCC mandated plan.
5. Must not filter any traffic except for security purposes, and those filters should be under the control of the customer.
6. Must allow customer to provide their own equipment, without additional charges.
Yes, they'll howl. Yes, they'll probably donate millions to the GOP. But the Democrats wouldn't just implement this, they'd warn the ISPs that if they lobby the GOP to alleviate them, the vice will be tightened even further when the Democrats get back into power.
The current FCC, thanks to lobbying, is telling ISPs they can hide the truth, hide things they know about. That's not acceptable. We need to go further than simply rolling that back, we need to punish those who ask for it.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Well, ideally, we'd expect Congress to do their job and remove them. Or the President to ask them to resign. But our Founding Fathers expected elected officials to act in good faith, not be corrupt, and yet here we are. So barring a massive wave of Democrats in the midterm 2018 elections that can reverse some of these mistakes, we're either screwed for the next few years or need to start planning a revolution.
That ISPs should have to meet the onerous requirement of stating price up front, just like every country store, gas station, and kid's lemonade stand has managed since forever.
Pai's proposed net neutrality repeal says those requirements and others adopted in 2015 are too onerous for ISPs.
Too onerous to tell people exactly what they're paying for? If the ISPs can charge you for it, they can list it on the bill. Perhaps consumers should consider it "too onerous" to pay for things that aren't listed.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I think you overlooked the fact that many Americans have only one choice of ISP. Even if they have two choices, it just becomes a game of ping-pong because they know you have to pick one of them.
It goes along nicely with their claim that cutting taxed on rich people and big corporations will result in more income and jobs for middle-class/poor even though many CEOs have come out and said they won't be using the tax cuts to open new jobs. The GOP has taken a flying leap away from reality.
(This isn't to say that the Democrats are perfect. Right now, they are the saner party - which isn't saying much. I'd love for the GOP to be a good alternative to the Democrats, but they seem determined to take the party into more pro-big-business and anti-science areas.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Plus, they barely compete on prices. Most of them try to gain customers with speeds and promotional pricing that doesn't reflect reality, when speeds are variable for a great many reasons and promotional pricing ends after 6-12 months, leaving customers with bait and switch policies as the norm.
"Pai's proposed net neutrality repeal says those requirements and others adopted in 2015 are too onerous for ISPs."
Disclosing the full monthly price is too much of a burden?
Explaining the penalty for exceeding data limits is bothersome?
Fuck you Pai. You're nothing but a corporate shill whore. We should be dismissing you instead of you dismissing common sense.
She would be exactly the same thing plus TPP.
The last chance was on the primaries.
Well, ideally, we'd expect Congress to do their job and remove them. Or the President to ask them to resign. But our Founding Fathers expected elected officials to act in good faith, not be corrupt, and yet here we are.
Actually, our Founding Fathers expected the central power to tend to attract the corrupt and corrupt any who arrived not yet corrupt.
That's why they split the government into three parts (with any two in combination able to override the third), complicated the procedures, and put lots of roadblocks in the way of doing things: So it would take a bunch of corrupt officials to get away with anything (and others would have some chance of stopping them).
Jefferson thought we'd have to mash a (violent) revolutionary reset button every couple decades, anyhow. But they wrought better than they knew, and their tell-me-three-times redundant system has tended to self correct. It still had a lot of problems, and hurt a lot of people. But (except for the Civil War) it didn't start seriously and persistently going off the rails until about WW I - 14 decades rather than two.
Want to know why we got tTrump? Because a lot of people got sick of the "deep-state" "two-headed singl- party" "swamp" and he was the biggest monkey wrench they could grab to throw into the machine.
Didn't work the way they, or you, wanted it to? So what else is new? Unintended consequences are the nature of government power.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The issue is not NN but competition. We have an issue with monopolies because the government... local and state mostly grants exclusive franchise licenses to run cable to no more than two companies typically.
that people presume to be surprised when abusive and monopolistic behavior occurs when you grant companies monopolies is baffling.
You do not have the right to such ignorance. Grant right of way access to poles and conduits for third party last mile ISPs and all this NN stuff becomes irrelevant.
Google is having a hard time running cable. That is how bad and how corrupt these franchise agreements are right now. And if google with all its resources is having a hard time then what chance does anyone else stand?
Open up right of way or shut up. Nothing is going to liberate consumers and users and citizens and people from the oppression of monopolistic forces unless you break the monopolies at their heart. And that heart is the exclusive franchise agreements.
Here some fool will say that such agreements are illegal. De Jura they are... De facto they're the law of the land. Try to run cable and see what I mean. You can't. Only former Bell Companies and TV Cable companies are running last mile cable. This isn't because other people don't want to run cable or can't afford to run cable or because there isn't a market. It is because if you try... you are denied.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
So much for the "free market" which only works when you have informed consumers.
Also helps if you have an actual market instead of a single vendor.
Wanna buy a shirt?
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It's too onerous to explain the fees, but not too onerous to charge them? How ridiculous is that?
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
First, as others have pointed out, 'actual competition' is rare for ISPs. You typically have at most, one phone company and one cable company owning the last mile. Everyone else who wants to run a decent speed / latency connection to your house will lease the last mile from one of these two. When that's 90% of the total price and is subject to so little competition (at most one other competitor), there isn't much the competing ISPs can do.
Second, this assumes no collusion. Most companies are run by people who understand what 'race to the bottom' means and realise that if they cut their profits in half and doubled their customer numbers, they wouldn't make more money. If they cut their profits in half and so did their competitor, then they'd both be making less money. The best strategy for them is to only put their prices down if their competitor does so first.
Third, this assumes that price is the only factor on which they compete. For example, Apple hasn't lowered their iPhone price to compete with cheaper Android phones. Part of the goal of network neutrality is to restrict the number of things on which ISPs can compete: they are all providing access to the same services in the same way, so they can compete either on price, speed, or both.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
America is becoming more and more owned by the corporations, but this isn't anything new started by Trump... It's been going on for a long time, and trump is just continuing the process, just like hillary would have done.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Here's an idea: when the Democrats inevitably win
If. A very big if. Roy Moore is a really big deal. If republicans can stomach a pedophile in their midst, they've obviously tossed the moral compass out the window. This could be a problem. It shows how desperate republicans and their supporters are. Dunno if you watch the news, but actual voters are saying to news folks, they literally would rather have Roy Moore despite his shortcomings over -any- democrat. This casting aside of morals is pretty alarming, and they're taking very effective tactics from Trump's campaign: Wage war against the media. Make it "US vs. THEM!" It's extremely unhealthy for our republic. And unfortunately, it's plucking just the right strings for the right. They could very well use these plays effectively in 2018 to crush the democrats again. We'll see, but after 2016, nothing is inevitable anymore. Nothing is for sure, not even outrage of this level.
Roy Moore is a very important character to watch. If he picks up the seat in Alabama, we're in for a bumpy 2018. And nothing will be for sure until the fat lady sings at the end of the elections in Nov 2018. If Roy loses to Doug, it's a good sign that the left is organized and getting out the vote. They'll need to keep that organization and zest alive for a whole year. Meanwhile, Trump is making all of us very very tired.
Let's say you're right. That doesn't change that on this issue at least a democratic wave would be a win for society. Now you can argue that this is only because dems are corrupted out to corporations whose interests in this regard happen to allign with our own - you may even be right, but you're STILL wrong to claim changing the majority party can't fix this issue completely.
Even all that aside, if you believe that both parties are equally corrupt - you really, really WANT a system where the opposition party controls at least one house on the hill, the best way to stem corruption (especially in this hyperpartisan era) is to make it so it's absolutely impossible to pass any law without a significant number of opposition politicians actually agreeing with it.
That was how Washington used to work - in fact as recently as 2010 it's how things worked. Reagan passed his tax reform as a bipartisan effort that took two years of cross-party negotiation.
Obamacare took two years of negotiation with loads of input and ammendments, public hearings, things added and removed by republicans - and quite a few republican votes in the end.
Then came the "lets make him a one-term president by actively blocking ANYTHING he wants to do - even if it's something we wanted to do ourselves for years" thing (it had sort of begun with Obama's election but only really picked up steam after the republicans 2010 midterm gains allowed them actually behave that way).
Now I chose those two examples quite deliberately. They came from opposite sides of the spectrum, based on completely opposite ideas of how things should be done - but in both cases they were done slowly, deliberately, in a negotiation process that ultimately got most of the opposition on-board.
Thus far this year, both those topics have been up again. Healthcare and taxes. In both cases republicans have tried to fly-by-night the legislation, keep it secret until the last possible moment, done all in their power to avoid any public debate or any chance for even their OWN politicians to know what's in the law before the vote. This is what happens when a party has full control of the government and no longer gives a damn.
What's worse - their approach seems to be that they think they'll be forgiven any horrible thing they do, just so long as they "fuck the liberals". No need to govern the COUNTRY, no need to try and make decisions that benefit their districts, their voters or even their base - their base will be happy as long as they fuck those annoying liberals over.
Somehow, since 2010 - being willing to negotiate a decent compromise bill and acknowledge you're there to serve the ENTIRE country went from "how the good politicians do things" to "an act of treason we will not tolerate in a republican", somehow liberals, democrats, progressives and whatever else you want to lump in there on the left went from "fellow Americans I disagree with" to "an enemy that must be destroyed by any means necessary" , somehow they aren't "real Americans" anymore, and any negotiation with them, any attempt to consider their views is seen as giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
That's a recipe for a government that is not only wholly disfunctional but utterly incapable and uninterested in ever doing anything for the people that elected them - as long as you promise to fuck the liberals over, your seat will be safe after all.
So yes, this is a terribly bad situation and one-of-a-kind one that America has never seen before. It is absolutely crucial for the survival of America that Washington be taught that this is not behavior the electorate will tolerate or reward, that democrats win by a fucking landslide in 2018 - to teach republicans that this approach to governance is bad for their own careers.
Yes, a major victory by the other side WILL fix the single biggest problem in American politics today - which has fuckall to do with corruption. Sure corruption is bad - but it's teenaged acne next to the cancer of "the opposition are the enemy" that republicans embrace today.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Most of these job killing regulations are unnecessary. Do they really think people will look at their bill, and the check they write each month, and not understand whether they're paying more than they need to or whether they may be able to get a better deal somewhere else? In reality, most people's bills will DECREASE because ISPs won't need to waste time a manpower collecting and sending this data.
LOL, right, because every time a company saves money, they pass that saving on to the customer! Just like tax cuts trickle down...
By the way, your first sentence gives you away. Calling them "job killing" immediately reveals your agenda and bias.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
This is what happens when you a shitty smelly indo-chimp in charge of the FCC. Eliminate H-1B visas and send Ajit Pai back to the (literal) shithole he came from.
No, this is what happens when you elect Republicans. And Pai was born in America, but I'm sure that's neither here nor there for you.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Admit seemingly innocuous protocol-- billed at the lowest rate-- to an IP that is happy to re-assemble it all back into something useful if taxed by the ISP or its minions.
The teachings of ways to get around the Great Firewall of China have taught people many meaningful dodges. It's a game of Whack-a-Mole at best, where the amount of rules changes becomes so administratively expensive-- even with software defined routing-- that it's not worth their while to do so.
If the ISPs were interested in conserving their traffic, they'd have null-routed all of the botnets of their customers long ago. This isn't about altruism. This is about shareholder profits, and once those profits decline because of overly-complex servicing algorithms, they'll throw them out. Nothing is foolproof, because fools are so ingenious, is the salient aphorism.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Buying a service or good is a voluntary transaction unlike Obamacare.
Please shut up with the Libertarian bullshit. Having an Internet connection is a requirement in today's society. Go ahead and try to get a job without an email address. Let them know in the interview that you haven't seen their company website because you don't have Internet at home. See how that works for you and if you end up "volunteering" to join the modern world. And secondly, try going without health insurance, if you think Obamacare is so tyrannical.
Some transactions are voluntary, and some are required to live in society. See if you can learn to tell the difference.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Your accusation actually makes no sense. How can you accuse the democrats of being unwilling to compromise and negotiate when the entire legislative approach of republicans have been to preclude the possibility? How do you negotiate on a bill when they won't let you read it? How do you offer ammendments or debate when the bills are secret until hours before the vote? Forget 2 years of negotiating major bills, Republicans refuse to offer 2 hours. Even most fellow Republicans don't get to know what they will be asked to vote on!
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
It's cute that you think there is a meaningful difference between US and THEM. Blindly supporting a party's candidates like you are suggesting is 99.9% of the reason we are so fucked right now.