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Net Neutrality Bill 38 Votes Short In Congress, and Time Has Almost Run Out (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Legislation to restore net neutrality rules now has 180 supporters in the U.S. House of Representatives, but that's 38 votes short of the amount needed before the end of the month. The Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution, already approved by the Senate, would reverse the Federal Communications Commission's repeal of net neutrality rules. But 218 signatures from U.S. representatives (a majority) are needed to force a full vote in the House before Congress adjourns at the end of the year.
Net neutrality advocates previously said they needed 218 signatures by December 10 to force a vote. But an extension of Congress' session provided a little more time. "[Now that the Congressional session has officially been extended, members of Congress could be in town as late as December 21st," net neutrality advocacy group Fight for the Future wrote yesterday. "This means we have until the end of the year to get as many lawmakers as possible signed on to restore net neutrality." A discharge petition that would force a vote on the CRA resolution gained three new supports in the past two weeks, but even if all Democrats were on board it still wouldn't be enough to force a vote. Republicans have a 236-197 House majority, and only one House Republican has signed the petition.
Net neutrality advocates previously said they needed 218 signatures by December 10 to force a vote. But an extension of Congress' session provided a little more time. "[Now that the Congressional session has officially been extended, members of Congress could be in town as late as December 21st," net neutrality advocacy group Fight for the Future wrote yesterday. "This means we have until the end of the year to get as many lawmakers as possible signed on to restore net neutrality." A discharge petition that would force a vote on the CRA resolution gained three new supports in the past two weeks, but even if all Democrats were on board it still wouldn't be enough to force a vote. Republicans have a 236-197 House majority, and only one House Republican has signed the petition.
So called "net nutrality" is a scam, a way for marxist democrat party people to impose HUGE goverment regulation on the free market and make everything about the internet WORSE. If you care about internet freedom, you should join the millions of others like us and voice your oppose to so called "net nutrality".
Except that Democrats are overwhelmingly in favor of Net Neutrality, while republicans are 99% opposed.
Yeah, and Mary Poppins can fly.
You really take the theatrics for real? How convenient that such a small group can hold things up so effectively. Makes the rest look good, doesn't it? Almost like it's planned that way.
House discharge petition
Oh good, Bruiser's Bill will pass!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Perhaps Net Neutrality is something best left to the states. This way the effect of net neutrality legislation in certain states could be compared to states that do not have it yet, this allows us to see what works best. This is as the founders intended, that states should be laboratories of democracy where where laws and so on can be tested and improved without affecting the country as a whole.
Also, I think what we need should be called Common Carrier rules, rather than Net Neutrality rules, because Common Carrier is a more accurate and precise legal definition that is more well known. Net Neutrality is too nebulous and easily misconstrued. If it is simply described as applying rules that applied to telephone companies to ensure they could not block your calls, its much less mystifying and based on a concept thats been around since the 1930s.
Its a little bit useful to understand the other side of the debate. The big problem that this is about from the ISPs side is network congestion and the fact most ISP networks are not designed for continuous high bandwidth video streams and instead were designed for burst use of load of static web pages and shorter downloads. So ISPs are faced with exploding bandiwidth congestion and to maintain quality of service, would require significant upgrades to the network infrastructure. So charging Netflix to help improve network infrastructure is seen as a way to keep prices low for consumers and only for people who use high bandwidth, for pay services like Netflix would be hit up to pay for their high bandwidth consumption since Netflix would pass through the cost to its own users. One argument for this is that the cable company has to pay its infrastructure costs for its own video services, while Netflix is getting a free ride. If ISPs are only allowed to charge very high bandwith video services like Netflix et al, and it is not allowed for low bandwidth uses such as static web pages, the effect would be less detrimental to free speech concerns since it would not effect peoples ability to express themselves through static web pages which is a big free speech issue. It could also be based on a formula based on revenue of the video service so that it will not put lower margin free youtube type services out of business.
I am undecided on the issue. Internet service is a little bit too expensive as it is and I would not want to pay more because someone with 4 netflix streams going 24/7 at once of HD video, something I do not use. I also am sympathetic to the side of the websites such as video hosting sites and do not want to see anything that would impact smaller start ups from getting started so we can have a diverse assortment of smaller video services rather than a monopoly. Huge fees from ISPs coming the way of smaller video sites would put them out of business. This is why rules could be designed to protect low margin free video sites .