One Year After Net Neutrality Repeal, America's Democrats Warn 'The Fight Continues' (cnet.com)

CNET just published a fierce pro-net neutrality editorial co-authored by Nancy Pelosi, the soon-to-be Majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, with Mike Doyle, the expected Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, and Frank Pallone, Jr. the expected Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The three representatives argue that "the Trump FCC ignored millions of comments from Americans pleading to keep strong net neutrality rules in place." The FCC's net neutrality repeal left the market for broadband internet access virtually lawless, giving ISPs an opening to control peoples' online activities at their discretion. Gone are rules that required ISPs to treat all internet traffic equally. Gone are rules that prevented ISPs from speeding up traffic of some websites for a fee or punishing others by slowing their traffic down....

Without the FCC acting as sheriff, it is unfortunately not surprising that big corporations have started exploring ways to change how consumers access the Internet in order to benefit their bottom line.... Research from independent analysts shows that nearly every mobile ISP is throttling at least one streaming video service or using discriminatory boosting practices. Wireless providers are openly throttling video traffic and charging consumers extra for watching high-definition streams. ISPs have rolled out internet plans that favor companies they are affiliated with, despite full-page ads swearing they value net neutrality. And most concerning, an ISP was found throttling so-called "unlimited" plans for a fire department during wildfires in California.

Make no mistake, these new practices are just ISPs sticking a toe in the water. Without an agency with the authority to investigate and punish unfair or discriminatory practices, ISPs will continue taking bolder and more blatantly anti-consumer steps. That is why we have fought over the past year to restore net neutrality rules and put a cop back on the ISP beat. In May, the U.S. Senate passed a bipartisan bill restoring net neutrality rules. Despite the support of a bipartisan majority of Americans, the Republican leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives refused our efforts to bring the bill to the floor for a vote.

Fortunately, the time is fast coming when the people's voices will be heard.
The editorial closes by arguing that "Large corporations will no longer be able to block progress on this important consumer protection issue."

Comments

Re:How are you even posting this?

[UnknowingFool]

Didn’t the Internet come to an end? I was told it was an Internet armageddon, and I wouldn’t be able to post this comment without paying an extra surcharge to Verizon or some other bogeyman. But here I am, paying no such surcharge.

That you know about. Tell how much of your Netflix monthly fee goes to pay off the likes of Comcast and Verizon? What about Amazon Video?

You were told nothing of the sort

[rsilvergun]

you were told there would be less competition, increased prices, bad outcomes for rural communities and a general tightening of mega corporation's control of the Internet. All of this is continuing apace nicely. Now, Net Neutrality is only one, albeit substantial, part in all that.

This is what drives me nuts about right wingers. Everything has to be simple, black and white. This is why we can't do anything about climate change. Because the damage not painfully, stupendously obvious.

It's the same folks who will argue, with a straight face and without irony or ill intent, that we can repeal regulations that were put in place to stop a problem because the problem no longer occurs... somehow completely missing the point that the problem stopped occurring because we put regulations in place to prevent it.

This is how we got the 2008 market crash. Regulations in place to prevent risky investment banking from mixing with safe mortgage banking were relaxed or eliminated in the name of "unleashing the free market" and "job creation". Those regulations were there for a reason. What's worse is because removing the regulations didn't immediately crash the economy folks act like it was middle class folks buying homes that crashed the country and not the billionaires gambling on them (nevermind that most of the defaults were not on people's primary residence but were investment properties themselves).

The world is a complicated place. Bad things happen for complex reasons and if you want them to stop happening you need to listen to experts because they spend years studying a problem.

TL;DR: For every sufficiently complex problem there is a solution that is simple, elegant and wrong.

Re:You were told nothing of the sort

[Bruinwar]

Not true. Community Reinvestment Act was never about making loans to people with bad credit. The "regulations being ignored" started 2002 by George W. Bush:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I get to trot out my Net Nuetrality comment

[rsilvergun]

again. At this point I like to do this in every thread, specifically:

1. There's an election in 2 years.
2. Vote in your primary. Most people don't, meaning your primary vote has many, many times more power. Politicians don't fear losing in the general, they fear being primaried.
3. Vote for candidates who refuse corporate PAC money. Google "Justice Democrats" and "Our Revolution".

What follows here is pure, angry white man ranting. Stop reading if that offends you. Or just keep reading if you enjoy being offended.

4. Yes, this is a partisan issue. I know of no GOP candidates who reliably support NN. The ones that do have only done so when they could be sure no strong regulations would pass.
5. Speaking of partisan issues, I don't know a single GOP candidate who refuses corporate PAC money. I'm open to suggestions though. But until then I won't even consider voting for them. You can't serve two masters.

Folks like to act like everyone has America's best interests at heart. And it's divisive as hell to suggest otherwise. I'm sorry folks, but this is a science forum, and science is founded on evidence. The GOP has spent the last 40 years serving the rich and well connected. The Dems have been doing it since Clinton, but I can find a wing of their party who wants to serve the people (again, google Justice Democrats. Or go look up the Bernie Bros).

The GOP is at this point irredeemable. There's nothing left there except a pro-corporate, pro ruling elite engine dedicated to shifting wealth upstream. You might have some social issues that are so important to you that you're overlooking that (abortion, gun control, stopping Mexican immigration, I'm already baiting a -2 troll moderation with this post so might as well go all in and keep digging). But if we're going to sit hear and tell ourselves we're a science and tech forum dedicated to evidence based reasoning then we can no longer ignore the obvious. Folks need to realize they're making a trade. You're trading your economic and political freedoms (the real ones, not the imaginary ones where you can have guns and pretend you can somehow overthrow a government with a modern army) for whatever pet issue keeps you siding with the GOP. If folks at least acknowledge the trade maybe they can start questioning if it's worth it?

Or maybe we're about to drag all of human civilization into another 1000 years of aristocratic dystopia. We'll find out in 2 years.

For the umpteenth time

[Solandri]

The FCC's net neutrality repeal left the market for broadband internet access virtually lawless, giving ISPs an opening to control peoples' online activities at their discretion.

No it didn't. Awarding these ISPs local monopolies with insufficient guidelines and regulatory oversight is what caused that. The ISPs do not have natural monopolies. Their monopolies were granted to them by the local governments. This is a regulatory failure, not a market failure. If this regulated market for broadband internet access is virtually lawless, it's because the regulators made it that way.

Instead of Net Neutrality, why not just do it the easy way and fix the original regulation - rescind the ISPs' monopolies and allow competition. At this point, I'm beginning to suspect the politicians (both sides) don't want to do this. As long as the ISPs have a government-granted monopoly, they're beholden to the government. The ISPs will continue to donate to the parties to maintain those monopolies. Allowing competition would mean there's no more reason for the ISPs to stuff the politicians' wallets. So instead the politicians advocate Net Neutrality, which allows them to have their cake and to eat it too. The monopolies remain so the ISPs continue making campaign contributions, while the politicians appease the public by appearing to be against the "terrible ISPs and their monopolies" (never mind the politicians are the ones who gave them those monopolies).

Re:How are you even posting this?

[meglon]

That's pretty rich coming from an incel like you who hangs on every lie Trump says.

If your only response has to come by way of strawman arguments or outright lying, you probably should just shut the fuck up from the get go, because you're absolutely useless to the conversation. Why is it worthless fucking idiots like you lie so much?

Re:How are you even posting this?

[UnknowingFool]

So the answer to government monopoly making mess...is MOAR government? Does that make ANY sense?

And your answer is THE WILD WEST! Everyone will police themselves right?

Open up the last mile to competition so that everyone can have multiple choices in ISPs again!

And how would that be possible considering? That's like saying we should solve world hunger by making more food.

The US taxpayer paid paid over 200 BILLION dollars for nationwide services we did NOT get [reddit.com] so just like anyone else who gets paid and rips off the customer we should take them to court and they can either give us what we paid for or we seize the last mile.

And yet you advocate that the same ISPs are not regulated? That makes no sense.

The answer to this is not NN because that isn't gonna mean shit if you don't do anything about the duopoly (or in many areas monopoly) controlling the last mile as without competition they have no reason to improve service or give a flying fuck. Make it easier for towns to start their own broadband, open up the last mile, and you'll see all this nastiness dry up and blow away like a fart in the breeze because if your ISP starts acting like a douche?

Your entire argument is a strawman argument. No one has every said Net Neutrality is the solution to monopoly. Net Neutrality is the only way the Internet can really function.

Just walk across the street and go somewhere else!

Do you live in my neighborhood because if you did you'd know that isn't the solution to the problem.

Thanks, I am

[rsilvergun]

fat lot of good it does me. I don't want to just be right. I want to be successful. I do what I can in my personal life to make that happen, but there's only so much you can do when the system is built to crush you. I've got family with illnesses, and thanks to the GOP's corrupt healthcare system (which the Clinton Dems went along with) I've spent the last 10 years struggling.

In another 2-3 years I _might_ finally get out from under all of it, I might not. It depends on what folks like you do next. Will you stop uselessly insulting me on /. with nonsense like "you so wolk" and realize that, as a member of the working class, the right wing who's taken you in and made you feel welcome while they roast you over a fire and dine on your flesh aren't your friends? I hope so. God I hope so.

Re:Fight continues

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Neither party cares about the people or even knows what NN is.

What annoys me, is that both parties have transformed the NN issue into their own political football, which they both kick around, trying to score points for their party, while making them look better, and the other party look worse.

The NN football and the people are the ones that always lose in this match.

Re:How are you even posting this?

[fustakrakich]

Two little words: common carrier

Re:How are you even posting this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I say that as a point because,once again, i have to point out that the restrictions on local/municipal ISP's being built out HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH NET NEUTRALITY. You're right though, some of these carriers have taken billions in tax money to guarantee rural development of lines and haven't done it. Those companies should be fined 10times what they took and didn't follow through on, but.... THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH NET NEUTRALITY.

Sometimes (well quite often) people confuse correlation with causation. They see the results of bad government, and assume the correct answer is less government. As with most things, the answer can be complex. Sometimes less government is the answer. Sometimes, however, you simply need competent government. Let's presuppose net neutrality is a great idea. It is, but I'm not going to spend time on it here. Let's presuppose that some ISPs avoid offering service in some areas because NN cuts into their profits too much. Now, given those two things, which of these solutions make the most sense?

1. Kill NN and hope for market magic.

2. Do not kill NN and hope for market magic.

3. Keep net neutrality, but monitor the actual situation addressing it as needed. If that means punishing those that have gone back on their promises, then do it. If that means the best deal is to build the last mile through bids, then open up things to competition, then do it. If what you just did didn't work out well, then refine it.

In short, politicians need to do their jobs, which includes recognizing when to stay out of the market and when not to, and, most of all, being willing to adapt based on actual conditions.

Basically you can repeat this solution for pretty much every major problem in government. How we ever got a world where we assume that only one extreme ideology or another can be the only way to go boggles the mind.

The reason you're not seeing competition

[rsilvergun]

is because capital costs and profit margins are too high. That sounds like a contradiction, and that's the trouble. Like a lot of things it doesn't work the way you'd expect it to.

Let's say you decide to compete with Comcast. You're gonna have to spend billions of your own dollars on infrastructure. You might be tempted because Comcast charges $100-$140/mo for something that costs maybe $10-$15/mo to actually provide. You could, over time, do it for $50/mo and make a killing.

Except Comcast knows this. They can and will drop their price to $20/mo and still make good money. Meanwhile you need to charge $50/mo for a decade or more to cover the interest on the loans you took out to finance all that infrastructure you built.

The real problem here is you're trying to put a square peg into a round hole. We _all_ want telecommunications. It's as essential and valuable as food and water. We couldn't live without it. Our civilization would collapse without the ability to spread information. For one thing we couldn't make enough food.

When something's that important and that universal you stop letting private corporations handle it. That's why we have a post office. But don't take my word for it, here's a much better list of the reasons not to privatize industries and how to tell the difference between something that belongs in the public and something that should be private.