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What Happens When States Have Their Own Net Neutrality Rules? (bloomberg.com)
Last month FCC Chairman Ajit Pai dismantled Obama-era rules on net neutrality. A handful of lawmakers in liberal-leaning U.S. states plan to spend this year building them back up. FCC anticipated the move -- the commission's rules include language forbidding states from doing this, warning against an unwieldy patchwork of regulations. But lawmakers in New York and California aren't aiming to be exceptions to the national rules; they're looking to, in effect, create their own. From a report: In New York, Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy introduced a bill that would make it a requirement for internet providers to adhere to the principles of net neutrality as a requirement for landing state contracts. This would mean they couldn't block or slow down certain web traffic, and couldn't offer faster speeds to companies who pay them directly. Fahy said the restrictions on contractors would apply even if the behaviors in question took place outside New York. She acknowledged that the approach could run afoul of limits on states attempting to regulate interstate commerce, but thought the bill could "thread the needle." Even supporters of state legislation on net neutrality think this may go too far. California State Senator Scott Wiener introduced a bill this week that would only apply to behavior within the state, saying any other approach would be too vulnerable to legal challenge.
But this wouldn't be the first time a large state threw around its weight in ways that reverberate beyond its borders. The texbook industry, for instance, has long accommodated the standards of California and Texas. [...] The internet doesn't lend itself cleanly to state lines. It could be difficult for Comcast or Verizon to accept money from services seeking preferential treatment in one state, then make sure that its network didn't reflect those relationships in places where state lawmakers forbade them, said Geoffrey Manne, executive director of the International Center for Law & Economics, a research group.
But this wouldn't be the first time a large state threw around its weight in ways that reverberate beyond its borders. The texbook industry, for instance, has long accommodated the standards of California and Texas. [...] The internet doesn't lend itself cleanly to state lines. It could be difficult for Comcast or Verizon to accept money from services seeking preferential treatment in one state, then make sure that its network didn't reflect those relationships in places where state lawmakers forbade them, said Geoffrey Manne, executive director of the International Center for Law & Economics, a research group.
Good! If the citizens of California and New York feel these rules are necessary and important they should be able to dictate such rules as they see fit.
That was, once upon a time, the magic of America, applying bottom up legislation allows for what works in specific areas to be applied and for other areas to not be applied.
It's time to go back to an anti-federalist interpretation of the federal government.
Part of the repeal, was that they forbade states from making their own rules.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Well, Mr. Washington State Regulator, as you see by these logs, we have not traffic restrictions within the State of Washington. That is the extent of your jurisdiction? Yes, it is. Oh, you want to know what happens once it crosses your State line? That is no matter of yours. Oh, you want to sue us? We'll see you in court, you have no right to tell us how the signal flows once it exits your State.
You are correct in suggesting that a celebration results from some states having net neutrality regulations to protect their citizens. Especially when it affects other states.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
The problem isn't random parts of the internet being slowed down, it's your local ISP slowing you down. Regulation on intrastate traffic is sufficient to get basic net neutrality. ISPs would really have to go out of their way to screw you over which is just asking for trouble.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Granted you just need 51% to be leaning. But New York has about 1/3 of its representatives as Republican, and it is nearly 50/50 split for the Local government elected officials. Outside of the City there is a good red streak in upstate. California isn't that much different.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
You forgot that people are only anti-federalist when the feds do something they don't like, but all for the Feds to exert their power to prevent states form doing something they don't like.
Is that a problem?
I was under the impression that the governments (both federal and local) should work for the benefit of the people, and that a big problem with governments as they are now is: that they don't.
Why is it bad that the people always favor things that they would like?
(Yes, there are corner cases like slavery and discrimination, but these only get changed when a majority wants them to change. We only gave women the vote in 1920 when a majority thought it was appropriate. Net Neutrality is not one of those corner cases.)
"The internet doesn't lend itself cleanly to state lines. It could be difficult for Comcast or Verizon to accept money from services seeking preferential treatment in one state, then make sure that its network didn't reflect those relationships in places where state lawmakers forbade them, said Geoffrey Manne, executive director of the International Center for Law & Economics, a research group."
No. It's not "difficult" for Comcast, Verizon, etc to know where their property is and under what jurisdiction it is. It's not "difficult" at all.
You can't have your cake (we don't know what going on on our networks) and eat it too (we know exactly who is using our networks, pay up).
Hey! I am %100 american too, comrade! Za zdorovje!
You are welcome on my lawn.
I am american and %100 opposed to job killing net neutrality. Anything that allows for job killing net neutrality to exist is bad for country.
I'll bite: how does it kill jobs?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I am 100% in favor of Net Neutrality, the Paris Accord, Common Core and a $15 Minimum Wage in New York & California. Let them lead the nation, and we'll see how well those policies work out. That's the idea behind federalism, where the states can be labs for democracy.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Big business has shoved these changes through, despite the wishes of the end users. Now as a result, they aren't going to have to deal with one set of regulations, they will have to deal with 50 sets of differing regulations and the resulting lawsuits when they screw up.
It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of guys.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Well exactly what I expected would happen. Net Neutrality was a relativity simple set of rules to follow, but the ISP lobbied to get rid of them so they can make a ton of money charging fees for premium packets. However this benefit is now hampered because the ISP will need to follow different rules for each state, making it difficult for them to follow one set of rules, so it will rise their cost of business.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Federal law -> state law -> local law For example, this is why North Carolina passed its infamous "bathroom bill". Charlotte passed a non-discrimination law the state government didn't like, so the way to overcome that local law is to pass a state law. State net neutrality laws will only work if there is no overriding federal law on the subject. Someone pointed out that the FCC ruling stated that states can't pass their own net neutrality laws to get around new federal policy. It may take a court to rule on that, but basically states can't win if a court finds that the FCC decision is the equivalent of a federal law.
It's okay, Ajit, it won't kill your job. It'll just slow down the passage of fragrant grease to you and yours. You'll still have your phoney-balony job
.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
You know, somewhere a lobbyist out there has a hungry Benz to feed, a trophy wife to clothe in Chanel, and a nose that needs constant powdering. Please, think of the lobbyists. Without these unsung heroes our nation would grind to a halt. For who else would write the legislation that keeps things humming along?
Whenever a lobbyist loses his job, an angel loses his wings? (Fucking grammar Nazi's)
(PS: Obduction was not a fun game. so much wasted potential.)
States and cities make decisions about which businesses get to run cables on property owned by those states and cities. There are many requirements that businesses must meet to run such cables. Why not make net neutrality such a requirement? The city or state is not regulating that business. That business is free to choose not to run their cable in the right-of-way and shit on net neutrality. But, if they want that contract, they have to meet the standards of the property owners.
Stick that in your FCC.
It may end up a Constitutional issue. The Constitution gives the Federal Gov't power over "interstate commerce", but not intra-state commerce. If there's a reasonable way to determine the boundaries, such as physical address of ISP subscriber, then in theory the states can enforce state-wide net-neutrality and privacy laws.
But the Supreme Court leans Republican, meaning they may kiss up to corporations out of dogma and/or their pocketbook.
Table-ized A.I.
"Certain web traffic" because the concern - well founded by historical behavior, I might add - is that ISPs will selectively slow or block access to services in order to either extort more money or to put up barriers to competition.
For example, your startup video streaming service competes with Verizon's video on demand? Well your traffic will count towards Verizon's data caps while their own traffic does not (letting them charge more from their customers) and *your* traffic in particular will be throttled or interrupted unless you pay extra.
See: Portugal's tiered internet structure, various lawsuits against Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and others over the past decade.
It has nothing to do with the potential for government censorship - that can happen any time for any reason with or without Net Neutrality rules. Instead, by opposing Net Neutrality, you are advocating that corporations be allowed to censor whenever it benefits them.
=Smidge=
I think that the abolishing of the Net Neutrality has essentially caused the FCC to get a hard time trying to control the states trying to enforce the Net Neutrality by state.
The end result may be that the FCC loses control completely and that the networks ends up being under state legislation instead.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I am american
No you're not. No one actually believes you.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I'm going to define democracy as a means of people peacefully removing a group from power. In the USA you have only two groups and you have absolutely no way of removing both of them. New parties can't form and take power. Most of your house seats safe. Senate and presidential campaigns require an insane amount of money, organization and legal work and that's just to get a name on every ballot. The Dems and the Republicans have a complete strangle hold on probably 85% of the elected positions in the entire USA
When was the last time a new party formed in the USA that was able to come in second in a national election?
How equal are people's voices? Does a minimum wage worker have 1/100 the voice of Mark Zuckerberg or 1/10,000?
Is gerrymandering legal?
Can a politician vote on a bill that affects a friend or major donor?
Does the USA support countries where the government changes by democratic processes more often than it opposes them for electing the "wrong" leaders?
*Since the end of Reconstruction, there have been a total of 30 U.S. Senators, 111 U.S. Representatives, and 28 Governors that weren't affiliated with either major party. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It works because alcohol had always been something akin to a legal right for all classes before tea-totalers came along. Getting high off a plant, on the other hand, was looked down upon by the ruling class and mostly of the domain of the underclass. You don't need the same force of law to forbid that versus something that you know the upper classes partake of.
That may well depend. What if the laws are taxes on throttled traffic. If they challenge taxes in court the decision might not be what your are predicting. Governments are known to seize property for non-payment of taxes before the court case has been decided. Also check out eminent domain...I don't think that they want to go there, either of them.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
But who would care if they did? There used to be lots of local ISPs, and it worked fine. Actually, better than it does with a few megaopolies. But the current group have worked hard to become universal only choices. They aren't going to give that up easily.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Lets just have CalExit and get it over with. Brown and crew would love nothing more than to be able to determine every facet of how Californians live without the pesky Feds.
They get taken to court by ISPs for attempting to regulate interstate commerce. The ISPS would probably win, too.
I am american and %100 opposed to job killing net neutrality. Anything that allows for job killing net neutrality to exist is bad for country.
Prove it. Use all of the following words in one incoherent sentence:
Guns,
Trucks,
Hell yeah,
Burgers,
Freedom,
Carpet Bomb,
Jesus,
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
he shifted the Dems right to forge an alliance that let him win the presidency. In order to maintain a separate brand the Republicans shifted right. The Dems followed suit with with candidates resulting in a country that's been moving hard right for 30 years. Roy Moore and Donald Trump are kind of the apex of all that, but Moore's sex scandal might have the kibosh on things. Here's hoping. I'd really like to join the rest of the civilized world in Single Payer health care, college and ending the wars (Drug and literal ones).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
vote in your primary. Almost nobody does. Next step is to allow primary voting across party lines. After that make sure every election has vote by mail. Finally make voting mandatory and decouple it from jury duty. Kill gerrymandering and switch to a parliamentary system if you want a cherry on your cake. Problem solved.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
You had me at incoherent. You win, sir, this time...
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Then those states won't be able to use the major ISPs to connect to the internet and will have to either have their own connection or forego internet access.
But the federal government doesn't need to pass laws restricting "state rights".
Just do like they did with the drinking age...
You want more permissive rights... then NO highway funds for you.
then say goodbye to Medicare and Social Security. Maybe you can get buy w/o SS. But when you're 65 nobody, and I mean nobody, is going to insure you. You're job will let you go if you haven't already retired to make way for somebody younger (and under a low-regulation gov't you can forget about suing for age discrimination).
Maybe you're going to be a multi-millionaire who can buy care out of pocket. Don't count on deregulation making it cheap. It's life or death. They can charge what they want. That $2000 tax cut (which is near the maximum unless you're running a corporation) will cost you dearly in your old age.
And when the hell did I defend Clinton and the DNC? They're a bunch of pro-choice Republicans who don't hate gay people. Did you completely miss the part about Justice Democrats? Those are the folks who will change the country for the better.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
For example, your startup video streaming service competes with Verizon's video on demand?
You are paying for Verizon's VOD as part of your Verizon bill. You aren't paying for Netflix data as part of your Verizon bill. That service requires bandwidth, and thus to provide the service you have paid Verizon for, they can't count that bandwidth against you. You aren't paying Verizon for the Netflix service, so the data that happens does count against your data service cap.
and *your* traffic in particular will be throttled or interrupted unless you pay extra.
Sorry, but a data cap doesn't automatically mean your data is interrupted. Only after you reach the cap. But you got all the data you paid for.
This is the counter to your argument.
Instead, by opposing Net Neutrality, you are advocating that corporations be allowed to censor whenever it benefits them.
Explain how a NN law in California stops Comcast of Iowa from not letting packets from an Iowa company on the net, thus effectively blocking subscribers to Comcast of California from getting access to them. Here's the secret you might not know. Comcast is already split up into separate companies to deal with state regulation.
This is why NN is an interstate issue and needs to be dealt with at that level.
It's also a bit disingenuous to claim that a federal agency is supposed to deal with this and then demand that states do it instead. Pick one.
Common Core is pretty terrible. I don't really think the Paris Accord ever meant much beyond nations stroking each other's egos and making feel-good promises they won't deliver on. Definitely not a fan of "min. wage" legislation, on the whole. (Just eliminate ALL laws trying to dictate what someone wants to offer for a particular job or task and let the chips fall where they may. If, indeed, it turns out like the naysayers sometimes warn, where everybody is reduced to earning 10 cents per hour? Ok -- that means deflation will occur when stores can't sell enough of even the most basic things because the sticker prices don't accurately reflect a realistic portion of a total wage for customers. Your $2.50 loaf of bread will become a 2 or 3 cent loaf of bread.) And net neutrality? It's a whole lot of hand-wringing about very little.
But sure .... in most of these cases, I'd rather see individual states given the power to handle these options as they see fit. The biggest downside is that when they suffer economic failure - they tend to come crying back to the Federal govt. for financial assistance.
Let's be frank: the patchwork of inapplicable neutrality rules over fifty different states is intrinsically NO DIFFERENT to the problems we face today of American congressmen or EU courts "insisting" on some Universalist application of a local law to the interwebs generally.
Our jurisprudence and legislation do not yet comprehend the internet paradigm, not even close. This will be nothing new, and may in fact hasten recognition and contemplation of the problem.
-Styopa
The death of the local ISP really came about only because broadband technology leapfrogged the cost of analog modems. It put all the small ISPs at an immediate disadvantage because none of them had the funds to just toss out their whole investment in 56K modem banks and analog lines, offering a high speed alternative they could deliver to people's doorsteps.
I had personal friends who ran local ISPs out of their homes back in those days, and the only real "bridge" technology from the modem to broadband as we all know it today was ISDN service. (It still ran over existing copper wires and your ISP didn't have to make a huge investment in hardware to purchase ISDN adapters or modems that could link to one the customer purchased.)
But almost as quickly as they could re-invest their savings or profits into ISDN gear, those 64K or 128K connection speeds were obsoleted by the big guys (cable companies, AT&T, Verizon, etc.) who started selling their FAR faster service alternatives that required their whole back-end infrastructure, lines, and other intermediate equipment to function. What was a "mom and pop" ISP really supposed to do? In some cases, they might be able to negotiate with one of the big providers to be some kind of reseller -- but then they were generally stuck charging more for service than what customers paid to bypass them as middle men.
So they did the only thing that made any financial sense ... sold out to the big guys, who basically only bought them to take over their customer base.
Look, I know how all of you think it's all swiss chees and a patchwork quilt, but it's really a set of Regional Compacts.
We in the Free States - places like NY, TX, WA, OR, CA and whoever joins our 60 percent of GDP - create a basic legal framework which we all agree on.
You in the deadender states - aka "the backwaters" - let the Feds ride roughshod over you.
It's like how we do Renewables in the Free States that makes us more competitive than your subsidized fossil fuels, and how we do Carbon Taxes that allow us to recaptute the carbon taxes you in the deadender states already pay other countries when you buy or sell goods or services to them (they keep your carbon taxes, it's part of the transaction), while we in the Free States keep our carbon taxes and invest them locally, and pay less in carbon taxes to the other nations. Which, also, makes us more competitive than the deadender states.
Think of it as the Hansardic League. Or the EU. You can either join and pay no taxes, or you can stay outside and pay lots of taxes to everyone else and get slower internet than we in the Free States do. We still pay less than you, and because you're not part of a Regional Compact you have no bargaining power.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Somehow, somewhere, some government agency has a plan to tax people based on this. They're certainly not going to let an opportunity to cover their financial asses go to waste. One could argue that the price of net neutrality was eventually going to be a national sales tax. If the government controls it, the government can tax it.
You are paying for Verizon's VOD as part of your Verizon bill.
That's one way to look at it, I suppose. Another way to look at it is Verizon is giving their own service a free ride. FiOS does not (currently) have data caps or throttling that I've encountered, so there is no argument to be made here that they're trying to save costs on bandwidth or justifying offering free VoD to FiOS customers because it's part of a package. There is no distinction between traffic used to stream video from Verizon's service or Netflix's service, other than Verizon could increase their profits if something were to make Netflix less competitive.
In a fair and neutral internet, the cost to watch a streamed movie would cover the cost of the bandwidth - you pay a Netflix service fee, and that fee covers the cost of their bandwidth (and other expenses). I pay my ISP service fee and that covers the cost of bandwidth with Verizon on my end. Without network neutrality, Netflix stands to become much less reliable and also more expensive because Verizon can abuse their position as ISP to stifle their competition... and VoD will suddenly not be free anymore.
Reminds me of how the major selling point of Cable TV was that it was commercial free. Then it was mostly commercial free with some premium channels (extra cost above base service costs) being commercial free. Now even the premium channels you're paying extra for run ads...
Sorry, but a data cap doesn't automatically mean your data is interrupted.
Never said anything about data caps. "Zero rating" if data is another issue that becomes a problem without NN but I'm speaking to quality of service in that quote.
Explain how a NN law in California stops Comcast of Iowa from not letting packets from an Iowa company on the net, thus effectively blocking subscribers to Comcast of California from getting access to them.
It doesn't, and that's kind of the problem with the state-level approach. We seem to agree on this point, at least.
=Smidge=
Why do Americans put up with that shit? I can see them setting a minimum like I believe it works here in Canada and will with marijuana (18 yrs) but here the Provinces decide on the actual age, 18 some places and 19 other places with various rules on minors drinking in the presence of their parents/guardians and such.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
That's one way to look at it, I suppose.
That's the way it is, so that's a reasonable way to look at it. You're buying a service. Just like buying a bus ticket to Las Vegas is buying a service, and you expect the bus to go all the way to the destination. A data cap on the Verizon VoD service would be like a bus ticket that includes only a limited amount of gas for the bus. The gas required to get there is part of the service you bought from the bus company.
Contrast that with buying a hypothetical "bus pass" that includes a set number of miles but no set destination. You get on the bus to Las Vegas but oops, you run out of miles before you get there. That's what buying a service from Netflix for video but only data service (with a cap) from Verizon is like.
I pay my ISP service fee and that covers the cost of bandwidth with Verizon on my end.
That's right. With a cap. And you pay Netflix for the service of streaming video, which does not include the data from Verizon to get it to you. You've paid Verizon for a limited amount of bandwidth.
and VoD will suddenly not be free anymore.
It never was free. You either pay Verizon for the service, or you pay Netflix for the service. How can it "not be free anymore" when it has never been free?
Reminds me of how the major selling point of Cable TV was that it was commercial free.
This fucking nonsense again. No, cable TV was never sold as "commercial free". Cable TV began life as and has always included the retransmission of OTA broadcast services, which contain commercials. (The only OTA that has ever promised "no commercials" was PBS, and they now carry a lot of them.) Very few specific and limited cable-delivered networks (such as HBO) could promise "commercial free" because they controlled the content. The local cable company does not control the content of the cable networks it carries. If that content provider has commercials, you get commercials. What do you expect the cable company to do when a content provider inserts a commercial, go to black for four minutes or more? Really?
Please, stop spreading this nonsense.
Never said anything about data caps.
You said:
That's not referring to data caps?
Coming from an American, complaining about the actions of other Americans!
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"