Oregon Becomes Second State To Pass a Net Neutrality Law (katu.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from KATU: Oregon Gov. Kate Brown signed a bill Monday withholding state business from internet providers who throttle traffic, making the state the second to finalize a proposal aimed at thwarting moves by federal regulators to relax net neutrality requirements. The bill stops short of actually putting new requirements on internet service providers in the state, but blocks the state from doing business with providers that offer preferential treatment to some internet content or apps, starting in 2019. The move follows a December vote by the Federal Communications Commission repealing Obama-era rules that prohibited such preferential treatment, referred to generally as throttling, by providers like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon. Brown's signature makes the state the second to enact such legislation, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. It also stakes out the state's claim to a moderate approach, compared to others: Five weeks to the day before Brown, Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill in his state to directly regulate providers there. The prohibition, which restricts with whom the state may contract for internet services, applies to cities and counties, but exempts areas with only a single provider.

Comments

Fair Weather Federalists

[Anonymous Coward]

How long before supposed Federalists are commenting about the overreach of state regulations?

Re:Fair Weather Federalists

[FictionPimp]

That makes perfect sense! Water is a public utility so my neighbors pool is a public pool!

Re:Fair Weather Federalists

[XxtraLarGe]

How long before supposed Federalists are commenting about the overreach of state regulations?

You're confused. This is actually a perfect example of how federalism should operate. Ironically, it took the election of Donald Trump for the left to embrace federalism.

Re: Fair Weather Federalists

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure you're allowed to limit access to your "pool" (website) but if you are the "water company" (ISP), you can't gouge people who want to use the "water" (access) to fill their "pools" instead of using that publically owned utility for any other purpose. If you're a pool owner who sells pool access, you're going to have to pass off the special pool water price increase to your customers. And what happens when Big Pool pays off the water company to keep you from filling up your backyard pool at a reasonable rate? Funny how much better this analogy works as an argument in favor of NN.

Re: Fair Weather Federalists

[jellomizer]

However in droughts the water company can limit your access to water, so you cannot use public water to fill the pool, or water your lawns. Because while it is a public utility, in case of scarcity water supply needs to be throttled and managed so there is drinking water for the public, and it isn't wasted on the rich who wants a green lawn or a nice pool.

I am in favor of Net Neutrality. However the water company analogy isn't a good one, because water is a scarce resource (in some areas) while data speeds and bandwidth are much less limited then a water supply. Where the ISP just needs to add newer faster switches and routers to meet demand, or slow down all traffic to keep everyone working. Vs. judging the content of the data.

Re:Fair Weather Federalists

[Penguinisto]

Probably about as long as Net Neutrality supporters postint the internet should be a public utility, but then think it's OK for YouTube, Google, Facebook and Twitter to ban non-"progressive" users.

If the internet is a public utility, the things people use the internet for are public utilities too.

Not a "progressive", but the Internet is not Google, Facebook, and/or Twitter. HTH.

Re:Fair Weather Federalists

[Penguinisto]

Agreed. I live in Oregon, so this concerns me, and not residents of other states.

If Comcast, CenturyStink, Frontier, Charter, and suchlike throw a fit, that affects us, though it's unclear how they will react.

Now coho.net (a small wireless ISP) specifically blocks/bans BitTorrent packets (they say as much on their customer page, so it'll be interesting to see how they respond...)

Re: Fair Weather Federalists

[JackieBrown]

Water companies (at least in San Antonio) are allowed to charge different rates if you use more water than allotted for typical usage. They define typical usage.

Re:Fair Weather Federalists

[Anonymous Coward]

That is like saying that phones are public utilities, therefore every service available over the phone is a public utility.

Net neutrality is about having neutral infrastructure, not neutral services. Things only become a problem when there's a private company that both owns the only infrastructure available in an area and has a monopoly on service provided through it. When the infrastructure was phone lines, and ISPs were a number you dialed, NN wasn't an issue (neutral providers could compete, because you could reach them from the same phone lines). This competition pretty much stopped after migration to (mostly cable based) broadband.

Re:Fair Weather Federalists

[penandpaper]

>Oregon is not arid. Eastern Oregon is a high desert.

Okay. It's not arid but more than half the state is a desert. ... For the most part Oregon is a desert because 2/3 of the state is east of the Cascades. If I had said "generally arid" would you have still made that flippant statement?

> all the irrigation availability created by hydroelectric projects.

Oregon is listed in the Newfoundlands Reclamation Act 1902 which I referenced. That irrigation availability and hydroelectric capacity are what I am talking about because when it comes to "irrigation availability" and water usage for "hydroelectric" it is a very contentious issue. Yet, as wikipedia elucidates : "more than 600 of their dams on waterways throughout the West provide irrigation for 10 million acres of farmland, providing 60% of the nation's vegetables and 25% of its fruits and nuts. ". Oregon is included in those numbers. A recent example of water usage and water rights is for energy storage. Energy hungry states (California ) and companies are trying to gain water rights to use local reservoirs as energy storage. However, if the reservoirs are being drained and filled daily it makes it very hard or very little water left for other water rights holders.

You typed a lot without saying anything.

Re:Funny how nobody talks about the real costs.

[HiThere]

Net Neutrality is orthogonal to unmetered service. Unmetered service is basically impossible without an unlimited budget. Net Neutrality is easier than the alternatives (except no internet, of course).

What Net Neutrality says is "there are no favored modes of communication". There are reasons why this is less than ideal, because some modes of communication are more time sensitive than others. But allowing violation of Net Neutrality requires that you trust the provider to not penalize users unfairly, and very few seem willing to believe that. Recent history should provide you with ample reasons why many people consider corporations untrustworthy.