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The Trump Administration Just Voted To Repeal the US Government's Net Neutrality Rules (recode.net)
The Federal Communications Commission voted on Thursday to dismantle landmark rules regulating the businesses that connect consumers to the internet, granting broadband companies power to potentially reshape Americans' online experiences. The agency scrapped so-called net neutrality regulations that prohibited broadband providers from blocking websites or charging for higher-quality service or certain content. The federal government will also no longer regulate high-speed internet delivery as if it were a utility, like phone services. From a report: Under the leadership of Chairman Ajit Pai -- and with only the backing of the agency's Republican members -- the repeal newly frees telecom companies from federal regulation, unravels a signature accomplishment of the Obama administration and shifts the responsibility of overseeing the web to another federal agency that some critics see as too weak to be effective. In practice, it means the U.S. government no longer will have rules on its books that require internet providers to treat all web traffic equally. The likes of AT&T and Verizon will be limited in some ways -- they can face penalties if they try to undermine their rivals, for example -- but they won't be subject to preemptive, bright-line restrictions on how they manage their networks. Meanwhile, the FCC's repeal will open the door for broadband providers to charge third parties, like tech giants, for faster delivery of their web content.
So I see a lot of negativity about this, even though in the past with no NN rules almost nothing happened, and when it did was shut down quickly (like torrent throttling).
So I have a challenge for you all worried about this. Today, make a note of how much your internet costs. Then do some speed tests and record the results.
In a year, do the same thing. How many of you seriously think we will be worse off?
I personally do not think much will change, if anything... there is little practical downside to the choice of the FCC, and so much fear mongering from the other side of things that it greatly strains credulity.
I do look forward to a year of ANY news having to do with an ISP being blamed on net neutrality though regardless of how it would have been affected by NN rules, sadly that's the one downside I am sure of...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The fat bastard (Ajit Pai) may have 'sung', but the proverbial Fat Lady hasn't sung yet, folks. Despite my sometimes doom-saying (hey, cut me a little slack -- the world is a depressing place lately!), this is, really, just the opening volley in the War for the Internet. As another headline I read on this subject stated: "Net Neutrality Fight Moves to Courts, (and) Congress". There's now too much at stake with this, and there are some big players with lots of skin in the game to lose. So keep your hopes alive -- for now.
you are being dishonest. You know perfectly well that this will be used to throttle bandwidth for non-paying content, and to censor.
To wrap that in bandwidth shows you don't know how the internet works, or if you do know then you are simply lying. I don't know you... you wouldn't lie, now would you????
(And i'd love to see some discussion as to why Obama chose make that first appointment, but it's kind of secondary at this point)
That's easy. He had to slap two republicans on the council anyway, I don't think he cared who they were as long as McConnell wasn't going to make a big fuss.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I posted this in another followup response but I thought I'd do one more post, since the figure from this test was more useful than Speedtest.net - fast.com is a network speed test from Netflix that today returns pretty different results for me than the speediest.net results... I'll keep an eye on that through the year and see if service starts to degrade.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I remember working at an ISP in the 2000s. We used QoS to prioritize or deprioritize traffic to certain services, mainly because warez and WoW were clogging the pipe. That was targeted at services. What they can do now is prioritize or fuck over specific businesses and the business will never know unless someone on the inside leaks the configuration. This will, guaranteed, lead to the most successful online businesses paying off carriers to interfere with the traffic of their competitors, making it difficult for a new business to get off the ground. They have already been doing something similar for a few years by having their PR agents plant news articles describing their competitors as racist, sexist troglodytes of the alt-right and pushing for them to be banned from industry conferences.
Well, I mean, they kind of were, weren't they? At least in the case of the Patriot Act, which he used and defended to a greater extent than W...
And unless any big surprises happen, they're now Trumps (or at least soon will be).
JFC. Generations of Americans who are still breathing helped fight off Nazis AND the Japanese empire simultaneously, won voting rights, landed on the moon, held off nuclear Armageddon, and invented the internet, all of which is harder than establishing reasonable regulations on the internet.
Two days ago, ALABAMA voted in a pro-choice democrat.
You're suggesting we can't stand against a bunch of douche-bag MBAs, corrupt politicians, and lobbyists? Go fuck a rusty railroad spike, you dumb coward. This is fucking easy. You don't need to elect perfect saints in order to make progress on net neutrality or legal bribery, just vote for people who talk about those issues specifically rather than bleat about the bible or terrorism and this solves itself.
If you can't bring yourself to do that, move to another shit-hole country or commit suicide so you're not dead weight in the next census and aren't wasting resources.