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22 States Ask US Appeals Court To Reinstate Net Neutrality Rules (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A group of 22 state attorneys general and the District of Columbia late Monday asked a U.S. appeals court to reinstate the Obama administration's 2015 landmark net neutrality rules and reject the Trump administration's efforts to preempt states from imposing their own rules guaranteeing an open internet. The states argue the FCC reversal will harm consumers. The states also suggested the FCC failed to identify any "valid authority" for preempting state and local laws that would protect net neutrality. The FCC failed to offer a "meaningful defense of its decision to uncritically accept industry promises that are untethered to any enforcement mechanism," the states said.
The state attorney generals suing represent states with 165 million people -- more than half the United States population -- and include California, Illinois, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The states argue the FCC action could harm public safety, citing electrical grids as an example. They argue "the absence of open internet rules jeopardizes the ability to reduce load in times of extreme energy grid stress. Consequently, the order threatens the reliability of the electric grid." Several internet companies also filed a legal challenge to overturn the FCC ruling, including Mozilla, Vimeo, Etsy, and numerous media and technology advocacy groups, reports Reuters. The group of 22 state attorneys general first filed their lawsuit in January after the Trump administration voted to repeal the net neutrality rules in December.
The state attorney generals suing represent states with 165 million people -- more than half the United States population -- and include California, Illinois, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The states argue the FCC action could harm public safety, citing electrical grids as an example. They argue "the absence of open internet rules jeopardizes the ability to reduce load in times of extreme energy grid stress. Consequently, the order threatens the reliability of the electric grid." Several internet companies also filed a legal challenge to overturn the FCC ruling, including Mozilla, Vimeo, Etsy, and numerous media and technology advocacy groups, reports Reuters. The group of 22 state attorneys general first filed their lawsuit in January after the Trump administration voted to repeal the net neutrality rules in December.
Hard to tell, ISP are for the most part unregulated, so how do we know if we are being throttled, or just their site is slower then others?
Being that ISP would want to keep this quite, they probably will make sure not to throttle internet speed tests, heck they may put them on the fast lane.
See we sold you 100mbs connection and run these speed tests and you are getting 105mbs.
The reason for Net Neutrality, is because ISP today are rarely just an ISP, but a media conglomerate. So we are using their infrastructure to access competitors, and new technology and sites which may require more bandwidth or different types of connections that the ISP may just not want to do. Because it is expensive.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Of the 22 states, how many of them actively prevent third party ISPs from entering their state? The reason we have no choice is most states are suing anyone who tries to enter their market. They use talking points straight from the telco lobby.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
This really comes down to the Supremacy clause of the US Constitution...and when it boils down to that - the States loose the argument.
Here is the simple logic.
FCC was created by Congress as an independent agency which Congress has invested with the full authority of the Federal Government to manage all things Telecom. This makes sense when you consider radio propagation as the first reason for the FCC to exist, i.e. radio waves don't respect State boundaries. In a similar sense - long distance phone connections cross state boundaries - so any one state can't regulate this - it is Federally preempted. Finally - comes along the Internet - something invented by a US Government Agency as a side note. This entity crosses not just State borders but International borders... again the Federal Government is the only entity that has jurisdiction extra-territorially by the way the Constitution sets things up.
So - what have we learned... there is an already existent Federal preemption of Telecommunications, FCC wields this power, and FCC has full jurisdiction to make such rulings.
The only way you overturn something like this is if the FCC didn't Federal or its' own procedures in creating the regulation... it is even a question in my mind whether States have standing to challenge this!
All of the above is what I've learned from Groklaw ;-) IMNAL!
Have you compiled your kernel today??
We already have seen what happens without net neutrality, Verizon, Comcast, and others have already throttled Netflix - the only difference is they were caught at a time when it wasn't legal. Now that it is legal, this kind of activity aimed at locking the consumer in and stripping their choices so they can increase profits and stop new competition is just going to expand. My reason for the very gradual changes are two fold. First, if every ISP started massively screwing customers day 1, there would be a massive blowback possibly undoing the whole thing. Far "better" to boil the frog slowly to avoid the backlash. Second, this only just went into effect and cases like this one, or if the senate flips blue, could undo it all. So ISP are approaching this cautiously. I can't think of a single time removing customer protections in the name of "companies are free to shaft steal and grift or treat customers right, so highly informed customers with tons of options will weed them out" ever worked for anyone but the shareholders of the few remaining borderline criminal enterprises.
The Democrats have gotten so used to using the courts to implement policy that they do it instinctively. That's pathetic. Real change comes from the political process...you know, like how marijuana legalization is happening.
Story that shows US internet speeds went from 12th to 6th fastest since NN repealed.
So, it appears internet traffic in the US has increased significantly, a horrible thing to happen since it undercuts all the NN supporter claims. Let the NN anti-science anti-fact people rage away at another Trump success.
I call BS.
*How* could internet speeds have gone from 12th to 6th since NN was repealed?
What does it mean to have gone from 12th to 6th? Compared to what? What were the actual average speed changes?
Or was it just "creative mathematics"?
Are you saying that equipment was rolled out that upped speeds? Where, when?
Anecdotal, but my speeds have not changed appreciably.
And how is that tied to NN repeal?
NN's repeal could be argued as april to june of this year. Given the most favorable amount of time, carriers purchased and deployed sufficient equipment in 4 months to have made a difference ( and again, what is the difference? )?
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