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'Gold Standard' State Net Neutrality Bill Approved By California Assembly (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: California's state Assembly yesterday approved a strict net neutrality bill despite opposition from the telecom industry. California's Senate already approved an earlier version of the bill in May. But some minor changes were made in the Assembly, so the Senate must vote on the bill again today before going into recess. If the Senate approves, California Governor Jerry Brown would have until September 30 to sign the bill into law. The bill would prohibit Internet service providers from blocking or throttling lawful traffic, and from requiring fees from websites or online services to deliver or prioritize their traffic to consumers. The bill also imposes limits on data cap exemptions (so-called "zero-rating") and says that ISPs may not attempt to evade net neutrality protections by slowing down traffic at network interconnection points. Yesterday's Assembly vote was 61-18. All 55 Democratic members of the Assembly and six Republicans voted for the bill. All 18 votes against it came from Republicans. "ISPs have tried hard to gut and kill this bill, pouring money and robocalls into California," Electronic Frontier Foundation Policy Analyst Katharine Trendacosta said. "California could pass a gold standard net neutrality bill, providing a template for states going forward. California can prove that ISP money can't defeat real people's voices."
UPDATE: The state Senate approved the bill 23-11. It's now headed to California Gov. Jerry Brown's desk, where he's expected to sign the legislation since it has garnered the support of top state Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Kamala Harris.
UPDATE: The state Senate approved the bill 23-11. It's now headed to California Gov. Jerry Brown's desk, where he's expected to sign the legislation since it has garnered the support of top state Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Kamala Harris.
ISPs plan to raise prices across the board to pay for neutrality...
nothing to see here - move along
The regulations, as cited in the summary, sure sound sensible.
I wonder if the bill has some weird riders or anything else in it, that are insidious and evil in some way.
Happy now, idiots?
Have gnu, will travel.
at the Federal Level? The Republican party has signaled they view Net Neutrality as an unnecessary and at times dangerous regulation. We can debate whether they're right or not, but their stance cannot be denied. And they're currently in charge of all three branches of Government. There's already been some bills proposed that would preempt the California one with weaker and largely meaningless controls. Baring a change during the Mid Terms those will pass.
I don't mind seeing CA doing this, I just don't think it will matter. Not unless there's a big change in our country's politics...
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seems like free stuff
to paper insulated wireline and new gov regulations to enforce everyone getting the same NN.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Several states have passed laws or regulations that have the same effect, but which are pretty much immune to the inevitable lawsuits -- Just ruling that the state will not do business with companies that are non-neutral.
California could have gone this way. But no. They pass a net neutrality law which is very likely going to lose to legal challenges, after a huge expense in court.
As a libertarian I HATE this kind of thing...as a Pragmatic libertarian I'll accept it. If we're handing out monopolies by state/city government internvention then I guess this is one way to 'fix' that...Better yet would have been to pass a law requiring all internet service providers to supply their infrastructure at 'non-discriminatory rates' (e.g. they have to charge others the same that they would charge themselves) & then allow open competition of ISPs. Then tack on laws to further reverse the cable monopolies 'ownership' (e.g. 'one touch make ready' & stuff like that)...then competition would take care of the rest.
but our government is specifically structured to limit your influence and increase the influence of rural voters. That's why we have a Senate and why we have an Electoral College...
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I predicted this would happen when /. ran a clickbait headline about how the chair of the Assembly telecom committee "killed" the original bill by unilaterally approving telecom-authored amendments to it before it went to the Assembly floor for a vote.
Obviously, he did nothing of the kind. Instead, all of the bought-and-paid-for telecom industry amendments went bye-bye in the process of the bill making its way through the Assembly, then the Senate, then reconcilliation, just as I said they would.
That's the way legislative checks and balances work in California. Not even the Assembly Speaker - the second-most-powerful politician in the state - can unilaterally dictate the contents of a bill, and expect it to survive the sausage-making process intact. That's especially the case with public-interest legislation, which this very much is. There are too many eyes on the process, both within the Lege and outside it (i.e. - journalists, public-interest lobbying groups, gadflys, etc.)
Would that it worked as well on the national level ...
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Has anyone reporting on this actually read the entire text? I'll bet not.
Regardless, the ISPs aren't going to bend over an deliver gigabit internet to everyone. They will most likely not upgrade performance or even universally degrade performance. With most places having two or even one ISP, there's no competitive financial incentive to make the service universally better.
I have one phone company to choose from and one ISP. They are the same entity. They both rape me.
Monopoly anyone? Nope, it's a telco, protectionism at it's best.
So, it is also setting making it possible to define "unlawful traffic", and require ISPs to block it in the future. Unlawful traffic like streaming.
I seldom have anything good to say about that hyper-liberal state, but here they are correct. If net neutrality goes, expect the telecoms to skim the profit off of every single internet company that exists while doing nothing themselves. The ultimate rent-seekers.
E Proelio Veritas.
Two party state and both parties are scumbags, not much you can do with first past the post when everybody votes for the one of the top two that they like the least and nobody can be bothered to think for themselves and prefers to have newspapers, TV and the internet do their thinking for them.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Funny how this net neutrality gives the usual suspects the playing field to monopolize the net in the name of freedom. But it makes sense for California to accommodate an industry that can't move faster out of the failing state.