Ajit Pai Thanks Congress For Helping Him Kill Net Neutrality Rules (arstechnica.com)

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai today thanked Congress for preventing the U.S. government from enforcing net neutrality rules. "The Pai-led Federal Communications Commission repealed Obama-era net neutrality rules, but the repeal could have been reversed by Congress if it acted before the end of its session," reports Ars Technica. "Democrats won a vote to reverse the repeal in the Senate but weren't able to get enough votes in the House of Representatives before time ran out." From the report: "I'm pleased that a strong bipartisan majority of the U.S. House of Representatives declined to reinstate heavy-handed Internet regulation," Pai said in a statement marking the deadline passage today. Pai claimed that broadband speed improvements and new fiber deployments in 2018 occurred because of his net neutrality repeal -- although speeds and fiber deployment also went in the right direction while net neutrality rules were in place. "Over the past year, the Internet has remained free and open," Pai said, adding that "the FCC's light-touch approach is working." Pai didn't mention a recent case in which CenturyLink temporarily blocked its customers' Internet access in order to show an ad or a recent research report accusing Sprint of throttling Skype (which Sprint denies).

Comments

Thanks

[110010001000]

A little extra in your pay packet this week!

free and open

[zlives]

fuck you pai, and the congress you rode in on

Re:free and open

[Anonymous Coward]

In DC, apparently.

Re: free and open

[Anonymous Coward]

Flagged this post. Enjoy your deletion, doichebag.

Re:free and open

[John Guilt]

Not O.P.ing in this thread, it seems, for one....

Re:free and open

[Anonymous Coward]

network speeds in the usa have gone UP since NN was killed.

so naw. fuck YOU dude.

Re:free and open

[PixetaledPikachu]

Does anyone know of a website like Slashdot but without all the whiny little bitches? Seriously, where are the people that enjoy life and actually thrive? People that are grateful for what they have and see each day as a gift. WHERE ARE THEY?

You're clicking an article about politics and net neutrality expecting those?

Re:free and open

[fustakrakich]

Yeah, fucking congress... Damn people just appeared out of thin air and took over, while everybody sat and watched, and cheered!

Re:free and open

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

You mean without millennials?

Re:free and open

[Anonymous Coward]

But, being the retard you are, you haven't noticed your Skype and Torrent speeds have gone DOWN, while your dumb-fuck-pacifying "speed test" lies to you and says it's gone UP!

Congratulations, comrade, you have been promoted to "useful idiot".

Re:free and open

[Anonymous Coward]

I only use the internet for speed tests though.

Re:free and open

[Anonymous Coward]

My anaconda don't want none unless you got buns, hun.

Re:free and open

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn milleniums

Re:free and open

[Highdude702]

My torrent speeds have increased too.. dont use public torrent sites and use full stream encryption. Or else dont complain that you can't break the law fast enough.

Re: free and open

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea because using torrents is breaking the law. Jesus Christ you are a grade A idiot. Every post you write gets modded down. It's hilarious.

Re:free and open

[Anonymous Coward]

"while everybody sat and watched, and cheered!"

Someone missed the wailing coming from the dims in 2016. Still too soon for you, eh Hillarybot?

Is there some reason

[Kernel Kurtz]

they can't try again when the Democrats take over the house?

Re:Is there some reason

[DaHat]

And do what? Create a resolution which will die in the Senate? Hell, the last time the Senate voted on a related resolution they were opposed to NN: https://www.congress.gov/bill/...

Re:Is there some reason

[Kernel Kurtz]

The vote was 52-47 in the senate.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-p...

Granted it would be easier in the house and harder in the senate next time around.

Re:Is there some reason

[Anonymous Coward]

There's certainly more eyeballs on the issue since Pai's mealy-mouthed admission that RUSSIAN BOTS were responsible for the anti-NN comments posted when they were taking public input! Lock him up next to Trump.

Re:Is there some reason

[Anonymous Coward]

because there was a time limit to use congressional action alone to 'undo' what the fcc did.

now it would require actual legislation, passed by both houses of congress, and president moron's signature (or super majority in the senate to override a veto).

Re:Is there some reason

[Anonymous Coward]

Should still try.
It is better to force the Senate to put in black on white where they stand, since there are so many there that doesn't stand by they word.

Then there is the President that appears to have always said at least two contradicting things on every subject imaginable and will typically find a third unimaginable action to go by just to make sure that he doesn't accidentally kept any promises.

Re:Is there some reason

[Actually, I do RTFA]

It would have to be phrased slightly differently. Prior to now, Congress could pass an "LOL, No" bill in response to Pei's specific decision, just undoing it (the timelimit on an LOL, No bill just expired). This would have to be a longer bill, that fully explained what Pei the FCC had to do. It would probably also either be screwable with by Pei, or be so firm that the FCC couldn't adapt it in the future when the invariable loophole was found. Also, because it was a new rule, not an LOL, No bill, there's probably a gap in time before implementation, as opposed to the instant application of "LOL, No"

The legal name for the "LOL, No" bill is the "Congressional Review Act" if you want to learn more

Re:Is there some reason

[Hognoxious]

Pei's specific decision [...] explained what Pei the FCC had to do [...] screwable with by Pei

Living up to your user name there, Bubba.

Re:Is there some reason

[Anonymous Coward]

They can't use the Congressional Review Act to do so, they'd need to write an entirely new law specifying net neutrality and somehow get that past both the Senate and the President.

The only real hope here is that the courts will take a dim view of how the process was handled and force the FCC to rescind the rule change on the basis of being a political decision rather than based upon any legitimate policy reasoning. And, somebody needs to go to prison for the fraud involved here.

The other possibility is that more states will decide to pass their own laws specifically stating that net neutrality is a requirement to do business in the state. Here in WA it was incredibly popular with both parties and they both submitted proposals that were similar. For us, we never lost net neutrality on our end because the politicians realized that it was political suicide not to do what they could to fix it.

Re:Is there some reason

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Reading and spelling are not the same skill. Thanks for point out my error.

Re:Is there some reason

[Kernel Kurtz]

OK, that makes sense. Thanks.

Only Tell Me When He Is In Jail!

[HannethCom]

The only thing I want to hear about that piece of crap is when he has been tossed in jail. I don't think it will happen, but Ajit Pai lied under oath in court and that is a criminal offense.

Re:Only Tell Me When He Is In Jail!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's only a criminal offense for second-class citizens like you and me.

People like Pai are not held to such standards.

Don't hold your breath about him going to jail....I am being completely serious.

Re: Only Tell Me When He Is In Jail!

[Anonymous Coward]

Creimertard. Delete thread!

Re:Only Tell Me When He Is In Jail!

[DNS-and-BIND]

Here's Clapper of the intelligence community lying to Congress under oath. Nothing ever happened to him. His punishment was getting hired by the mainstream media.

Re:Only Tell Me When He Is In Jail!

[Anonymous Coward]

Lying is okay when my team does it.

Re:Only Tell Me When He Is In Jail!

[Anonymous Coward]

Womp womp.

Re: Only Tell Me When He Is In Jail!

[houghi]

We luve in a world where people can lie and novody cares. They can even tell the truth and nobody cares.
He could say "I have taken bribes." Nothing woud happen.

Re: Only Tell Me When He Is In Jail!

[Hodr]

Well that's just not true. The IRS would ask for their cut.

Re: Only Tell Me When He Is In Jail!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you think you are raised up to second class status?

Re:Only Tell Me When He Is In Jail!

[Anonymous Coward]

Jail, No. Treason is punishable by death. Which is what he deserves for selling out every US citizen to Verizon and friends. Of course he has just as much of a shot at death as he does jail time. The US proletariat has lost every last shred of power their ancestors fought for.

GOP

[meglon]

Fucking over US citizens every chance they get.

Re:GOP

[Anonymous Coward]

+4??!

Gag me with a coke spoon! The fucking democrats are the republicans' conjoined evil twin. Then the democrats absorbed the republican party in 1968! All that remains is a little head on their shoulder yelling in their ear.

The democrats fucked you all over 10 years ago, and now you gave them the keys to the city to do it all again! How stupid can you be?!

Re:GOP

[Solandri]

Net neutrality is only "necessary" because of the cable monopolies. If the customers don't have a viable alternative ISP they can flee to, the cable monopoly can get away with anti-consumer moves like degrading Netflix until Netflix pays their extortion fee.

The reason we have cable monopolies is because local governments awarded monopoly service contracts. Usually they granted the monopoly in exchange for coverage guarantees - to insure that low-income areas weren't excluded from cable and Internet service. That's where the screwing over of U.S. citizens began. I can assure you it wasn't the GOP pushing for those coverage guarantees. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

If you think we have cable monopolies because the cable companies are evil, you have cause and effect reversed. Cable companies became evil because government gave them monopolies. That kicked off the whole "power tends to corrupt; absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely" cycle, turning the cable companies evil. Rather than retain the evil companies and try to control their behavior through legislation which usually takes on the order of decades, we should just require competition to be reintroduced into the ISP markets. Once people have a viable choice of ISPs, they will choose the less evil one on their own, usually in a matter of months.

If there's competition, any ISP intentionally degrading Netflix to try to get Netflix to pay their extortion fee will just hemorrhage customers, who will switch to a different ISP who doesn't degrade Netflix. And the beauty is, competition doesn't just work to punish ISPs who violate net neutrality. It works against any anti-customer behavior by ISPs. The genesis of this entire problem is that a bunch of people in government decided they could do a better job choosing an ISP than The People.

Re:GOP

[JaredOfEuropa]

Not really. The real problem is that most ISPs are not satisfied anymore to just pipe the internet into our home like any plumber, they also want to get into the content game. And as soon as that happens, there’s an incentive to promote your own crap over similar content from other providers. And in any case there’s the temptation of letting someone pay you to give them preferred service, allowing you to collect from both consumers and hosts. We (still) have plenty of providers to choose from here, but they were getting ready to do all that, before our parliament voted in net neutrality. One of them tries and sees what they can get away with, then the rest of them follows suit. A race to the bottom.

Re:GOP

[Anonymous Coward]

Network service, just like electricity, water or gas distribution, has very high installation costs and marginal maintenance costs. This means that it tends to consolidate into natural monopolies, where the winner takes all even in absence of the regulation that you decry.

If you want a competitive market, you need to have regulation. This works quite well in Europe, where cities do not have any competence in market regulation. It it done at the highest level, on a "federal" scale, which is harder to corrupt than the local scale.

Re:GOP

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, and we're coming for you whiny, shit-stain little redneck wanna-be Nazis. We will remember.

Re: GOP

[Anonymous Coward]

You're now on the list. Hope you've enjoyed your life. You won't have much left.

Re:GOP

[dgatwood]

The reason we have cable monopolies is because local governments awarded monopoly service contracts. Usually they granted the monopoly in exchange for coverage guarantees - to insure that low-income areas weren't excluded from cable and Internet service.

They did the same thing for telephone. But you're badly mistaken if you believe that removing monopolies will result in competition. Countless towns have tried that over the years, and essentially 100% of the time, they were back to a monopoly within about five years.

Why is this the case? Because wire infrastructure is something economists call a natural monopoly — a product or service in which the startup costs are so high and the payoff over such a long period of time that competition is infeasible.

When a new company comes into a territory with an existing cable company, the new company has to have some way of inducing people to switch — either by lowering their cost or by providing better service. Either way, it is very easy for the existing company to match their offer, because they have paid for their infrastructure, and almost all of their income is profit. So the existing company invariably either matches or undercuts the newcomer and provides enough improvements to their service so that the newcomer cannot steal enough subscribers to cover the payments on their construction costs plus operating expenses.

What happens then? Unless the local government decides to bail out the newcomer to keep competition going, the newcomer typically sells the infrastructure to the older cable company for little more than what they still owe on it, thus giving the incumbent a set of new replacement lines at significantly below cost. And you're back to a monopoly.

That's why, with the possible exception of extremely high-density areas where a new company can get by on a tiny percentage of residents/businesses, the only places where competition has ever really succeeded have been places that have had two or more competing companies since the dawn of cable TV, and even those usually break down to a monopoly eventually.

This is a problem that cannot be solved no matter what you do. Wire infrastructure is simply too expensive to allow for competition in practice. Heck, wireless infrastructure is almost too expensive in most places, forget wired.

The only way to get real competition in Internet service is to separate the wire provider from the actual Internet service provider. In practice, this can happen in one of two ways, both of which involve the government:

• Governments can create regulations that require incumbent cable or fiber providers to lease access to their competitors at a reasonable rate.
• Governments can build out a fiber infrastructure and then lease access to any ISP that wants to provide service over those fibers. Governments can optionally spin off the resulting fiber provider as a nonprofit corporation with a mandate to lease access to any ISP at a reasonable rate.

Either way, the result is the same: You have one company or organization providing wire service for multiple ISPs. When you do this, competition is possible at the ISP level. In practice, though, the second approach (government-built infrastructure) tends to work better in the long run, for two reasons:

• Incumbent providers who own the lines tend to do only minimum maintenance on lines that are in use by other companies, resulting in two companies blaming each other for poor service, and the customer having no real recourse.
• Those sorts of laws typically apply only to a given technology, and have to be constantly updated as the technology changes, or else they become useless. After all, we had such a law for ADSL, but the phone companies then ran fiber out to remote terminals to provide ADSL2 service, and wouldn't lease those fibers, so only the phone company could provide the faster ADSL2 service. And once you switched over, they would cut the existi

Haha

[Anonymous Coward]

It will be funny when 2020 comes and the only people that this will affect are in the non-coastal states that want this sort of rubbish.

Re: Haha

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the ones that vote 47% dem? This country is split right down the middle with a few votes this way or the other in nearly every race. You really think belittling your own like minded people helps anything?

Re: Haha

[Anonymous Coward]

Repubtards like Ajit Pai are not like minded. They are scum that feed off of their own kind.

can't see the article through the ad

[Anonymous Coward]

Its really hard to read the top article due to the ad that takes 30% of the screen and blocks the ad.

Scroll you say... well the article scrolls under the ad

Congress should make net neutrality law

[melted]

Congress should make net neutrality law of the land. It's insane that the FCC (an unelected body) had the authority for something like that to begin with.

Re:Congress should make net neutrality law

[Anonymous Coward]

The actual result was 35.8%. The previous year it was 22%. The interesting aspect of that is it's based upon speed results by a company that measures speed tests. That alone makes it biased since people who upgrade their connection are more likely to run a speedtest vs those who don't upgrade to not running said test. Of course people who are new to broadband will also be more likely to run a speedtest, but the number of people new to broadband may not be increasing rapidly. Finally, speedtests are precisely the sort of thing that net neutrality rules would be designed to prevent being gamed by granting them higher priority to create the appearance of improved performance vs actual average performance.

In short, I'd like to see a more systematic measure of speed from a variety of metrics that in aggregate could be used to measure actual broadband penetration, speed, etc. It's not enough to read a news article linking to one website's numbers and accept it as fact any more than I'd trust Steam statistics as fact.

Re: Congress should make net neutrality law

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it shouldn't. The CenturyLink thing the summary mentioned was due to heavy-handed Internet regulation, by a local state government. They legally required CenturyLink to notify every subscriber that they could enable filtering.

This is the type of thing when you allow government to regulate the Internet. Keep the government as far away as possible, thank you very much!

Re:Congress should make net neutrality law

[PopeRatso]

Ding ding ding! Found the paid shill!

Your fancy "document" written hundreds of years ago by privileged white slave owners is completely irrelevant. It never held much water and sure doesn't now. I will give it a break though in how elastic it is. There ARE provisions for Congress to delegate its powers elsewhere. If this were not the case, the constitution would have been burned decades ago along with its 18th century isolated thinking.

It is only a matter of time before the pendulum swings and we get a representative government that bothers TAKING CARE of its people, the borders are deactivated just as they were when the Iron Curtain came down, and everyone gets to live an equitable and fulfilling life.

Re:Congress should make net neutrality law

[Anonymous Coward]

they should. but they won't.

this has nothing to do with networks or neutrality.

this is all about keeping the internet under the thumb of the fcc. a non elected body with a leader that changes with the admin.
a non-elected body that also has an arm dedicated to standards and practices. the people who say what is allowed on tv and radio.

it's a democrat wet dream to apply those standards and practices to the internet.
making fun of a dem? that's now hate speech and the fcc will shut you down! sharing memes? nope not allowed! SPLC says pepe is a hate crime!

it's why they're fighting so hard to keep it in the fcc. and not make it an ACTUAL law.
they don't give a shit about neutrality. but censorship powers? oh they love that more than illegals to abuse!

Re:Congress should make net neutrality law

[Anonymous Coward]

You should stop replying to people without even reading what they wrote.

Re:Congress should make net neutrality law

[dgatwood]

So - Internet speeds are increasing after NN is overturned. How is this bad for the consumer, again?

Speeds to speed test servers are increasing faster after NN is overturned, but those have little relation to actual Internet speeds. They represent best-case speed, rather than typical speed, because no ISP would be stupid enough to throttle connections to a speed test server. But actual average speeds may or may not be increasing any faster than they were before.

Also, by focusing on average speed, you're missing the whole point of net neutrality. It isn't about the average. It's about the worst case. It's about ensuring that ISPs aren't extorting companies who aren't their customers, about ensuring that ISPs don't artificially degrade performance on specific services like video-on-demand or VoIP to drive customers to their own competing services, and so on. That can't be measured using average bandwidth. At all.

To use a car analogy, saying that average Internet speeds increased after the repeal of NN is roughly like saying speed limits increased after overturning a law that prevents illegal speed traps.

Re: Congress should make net neutrality law

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, I have to call BS here. People are only *able* to upgrade their internet connection speeds if ISPs offer the option. That option doesnt exist in a vacuum or on a per customer basis, but rather on switching hardware that supports thousands of customers. So if one person *can*, then others could whether they opt to pay for more speeds or not. The better metric isnt a speed test run on each and every computer, but rather a composite or statistical representation of subscriber locations to analyze the true speeds offered within their service areas that can be interpolated to all households. It doesnt matter what type of person runs the speed test because grandparents that just want to stream the hallmark channel can get blazing fast internet speeds like any hardcore gamer. QED.

Re:Congress should make net neutrality law

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's insane that the FCC (an unelected body) had the authority for something like that to begin with."

They constitutionally do not have that power. The problem is that many people, are suddenly & usually okay when agencies like this do make laws they DO approve of regardless of the constitutionality of them.

Ultimately a person of morals has to very carefully weigh the options. If you can bend the rules to insure a more moral outcome and your pretty certain that the rules aren't going to change, then sometimes it might be the correct decision. There is a slippery slope here, that is likely also ice coated. The bias should be against doing so, and even if it is done, one should always look towards moving towards the correct solution.

Obama did some stuff with immigration that was legally questionable, yet it had a moral result, and might yet be the pebble in the pond that leads to change.

Republicans create laws and rules to destroy the availability of abortion, because they believe that the cost is worth it. I understand this viewpoint, but the part that I do not like is when you say the additional children that are born are worth overriding the wishes of the mother, sometimes in some limited cases to the point where her life might be in danger, but then not necessarily make any special effort to take care of those additional children after the fact. Life can't be valued to infinity and beyond before birth, but somehow after birth we fail so many who do not live up to their potential.

Republicans say they believe that Obamacare is horrible/evil/whatever the adjective is. A lot of that is about the individual mandate which is a key pillar of the whole thing, and really of any sane solution. Now if people that want to kill Obamacare agree to support a law saying if you don't have a way to pay then hospitals are under no responsibility to treat you and can throw you out to die, well then that would at least be reasonable.

Consistency is key.

You can't necessarily only create laws that have only the bits people like. The books don't balance. That is not to say that NN is going to stop internet build out. I rather think it won't matter a great deal, save at the edges. Places that haven't been served, still won't be. The companies are still going to look for basically instant profit. Still the lack of it might increase some build out at the edges. That doesn't mean we shouldn't restore NN. We should. What it probably means is internet build out, at least beyond cities, is an area that corporations fail at, so like roads, you have to make sure it gets done, hence government.

Re: Congress should make net neutrality law

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting. I think that is what is called "flipping the script".

So Dems are trying to censor via government, and the GoP is trying to censor via corporations and wealth?

So it is a might makes right system? And there is no hope for Neutrality?

Re:Congress should make net neutrality law

[SirAstral]

" If you can bend the rules to insure a more moral outcome"

This is what is called using fuzzy logic to justify whatever outcome you choose. Your morals do not match other peoples morals. If you swear to follow the Constitution and then spend time bending it, then you are obviously intentionally breaching your oath and intentionally betraying The People. The moment you start down this path you are corrupt.

The proper process is to uphold that constitution and seek to legally amend the document to match your morals and go through the proper process to see if enough folks agree with your morals. Otherwise you only justify the concept of wiping your ass with it just like those blatantly disregarding it. You know just exactly what you were doing when you starting trying to BEND it in the first place. Acting otherwise clearly indicates that you are more than willing to become a hypocrite about the issue.

There are lots of things everyone disagrees on in the Constitution, but under no circumstances can it be allowed to be trampled for political or moral expediency with rending it completely useless as it has been rendered now. The list of usurpations and abuses of power are more than long and varied enough to make it clear we are potentially or uncomfortably close to just one flash point away from a catastrophic breakdown of our entire society. There are innocent & decent people rotting in the system and no one much cares. Many people are going to vote in a corrupt person regardless of party because now its all about the tribe and making sure your tribe wins at the expense of your fellow citizens.

Re: Congress should make net neutrality law

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much. We the consumer are boned.
Unless we can half shame half fool them into giving us some real laws to make the GOP look bad.

"Passing a real NN law will make trump look bad! You want that don't you?"

Re:Congress should make net neutrality law

[vux984]

" If you swear to follow the Constitution and then spend time bending it, then you are obviously intentionally breaching your oath and intentionally betraying The People. The moment you start down this path you are corrupt."

That's hyperbolic nonsense. If congress betrays the people and passes an immoral and unjust law the people don't want, it is not a betrayal of the people nor is it corrupt to ignore it.

And THAT is the problem here: Things are already bent out of shape and massively corrupt. That's our starting position. To blindly enforce the rules exactly as written is just an unjust tyranny of a new sort.

You seem to claim there is something wrong with innocent and decent people rotting in the system... yet the constitution allows much of it. In many cases the laws putting them there have been duly passed, and are enforced as written. Congress must act to legislate the fixes properly. But only a fool think that will happen in this climate, or happen soon. You would perpetrate that injustice while the two tribes bicker, and call anyone who seeks pragmatic expedient moral solutions to help those people... you call them without exception or consideration: corrupt oath breakers.

You do not have a solution. Your idealism, if applied without wisdom and consideration, will only make the problems WORSE.

The constitution does not provide a solution to the current systemic malignancy, if anything, one could argue that it was flawed at its inception that it allowed us to get here. Partisan / Tribalism should never have been allowed to infiltrate the process for approving judges, or justice department officials. The idea that the threat of impeachment would be sufficient to keep a nutball president in check was naive -- really no one could imagine a scenario where a significant chunk of the senate would go along with a bad president ? And blind constitution worship isn't going to find you a path out of this mess now.

The country might still find its way through; the common sense ballot initiatives against gerry mandering had wide bi-partisan support -- that's encouraging at least. The people are basically good on both sides, and even when they don't agree they want the system to be fair.

Re:Congress should make net neutrality law

[SirAstral]

It is hard to discuss things like this with folks like you because you are so full of fallacies and ignorance it hurts. The time it takes to point them all out are more than I care to tackle so I will only go after the most glaring. To be honest you practically need an entire day of introduction to basic logic and how to avoid holding contrary values.

"If congress betrays the people and passes an immoral and unjust law the people don't want, it is not a betrayal of the people nor is it corrupt to ignore it."

This is a strawman fallacy. "The Law" and the "Consitution" are very different things, but apparently you are not capable of understanding that. The Law is just a bunch of rules enforced on people. The constitution is a founding document that gives those "rule writers and enforcers" their authority. Without it, they have no "agreed upon" authority. "We The People" are America... NOT THE GOVERNMENT but you don't seem to understand that. And if you are okay with using your strawman fallacy to deconstruct my point then you are also making the claim that your version of morals are superior to the constitution and that you should be allowed to judge who is a slave or human or having any rights.

"If congress betrays the people and passes an immoral and unjust law the people don't want, it is not a betrayal of the people nor is it corrupt to ignore it."

That is the real hyperbole here. Just because YOU don't like a law they pass does not mean they betrayed anyone. If they pass a law you don't like your job is to get the law changed, NOT IGNORE IT, otherwise you are clearly promoting anarchy the opposite of being civil! If you are going to run around justifying that it is okay to break the law because you disagree with it then so can everyone else for their own petty reasons as well. After all.. why is YOUR understanding of morals so-called superior to a common thugs understanding of it or the law for that matter? Where is your authority for this judgement?

"You seem to claim there is something wrong with innocent and decent people rotting in the system... yet the constitution allows much of it."

That document does NOT allow for it. It is the constant breach of it that is allowing it, get your facts straight.

"In many cases the laws putting them there have been duly passed, and are enforced as written."

This is the REAL show of your ignorance and how contradictory and ignorant you are. Which is is? Where they duly passed or are they betraying you? If as you said "massively corrupt" then it is not possible for them to also be "in many cases...duly passed' So you either do not know what duly means or you are clearly not capable of keeping your own view points of of conflict with each other!

"The constitution does not provide a solution to the current systemic malignancy,"

that's what voting is for... if you and the rest of your fellow voters are as ignorant as you, then THAT is why you think there is no solution.

"if anything, one could argue that it was flawed at its inception that it allowed us to get here."

I suppose you are the only one among us without flaws... This reeks of a nasty God complex. The Constitution "with all of its flaws" is likely better than anything you could put together in a lifetime. You can't even survive one post without a bunch of conflicting view points.

"Partisan / Tribalism should never have been allowed to infiltrate the process for approving judges, or justice department officials."

EVERYTHING IS TRIBAL!! It is human nature, just being pro follow the law vs becoming anarchist in moral outrage is also tribal. You are espousing a tribal view in your bitching and moaning against them!

I espouse "follow the law" not because of tribalism but because if you say ignore it then you cannot justify punishing those that break it for their morals either. That is a hypocrisy and hypocrisy like that not far away from murder, because many time such hypocrisy has been used to justify "dehumaniz

Re:Congress should make net neutrality law

[drinkypoo]

They represent best-case speed, rather than typical speed, because no ISP would be stupid enough to throttle connections to a speed test server.

Unless it's fast.com, because it hits the same servers as netflix video. That at least tells you if they're throttling netflix (mine does.)

Re:Congress should make net neutrality law

[Anonymous Coward]

Law means nothing. Only those with the power to enforce their will over others is just. Burn history and burn the heretics that cling to dying traditions that would encumber the the rightful place of the powerful over the weak to protect the weak. The written cannot stop raw force, violence, and hatred that I offer. You are with me or you are my enemy.

That is you. That is what you sound like. People died to the the misguided pursuits of utopia following people like you.

Re:Congress should make net neutrality law

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you good sir.

Re:Congress should make net neutrality law

[Anonymous Coward]

and if you're an American Patriot who believes in the system in which he lives then you're an adorable little socialist too. How do you like your military, roads, social security, medicaid, etc etc etc etc? You can't hate those things and be a patriot so please get on the "I know how this country operates and am not confused by GOP talking points" team or at least understand that bashing socialism outs you as being a traitor.

Re:Congress should make net neutrality law

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure the OP tells firefighters to go back home when called to stop his home from burning down because GOP voters don't believe in socialism. And joins the military every time we commit troops to combat because no self respecting GOP voter would ever rely on some government funded program to protect them from the enemy.

Re:Congress should make net neutrality law

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you can speak with same confidence when all of your rights and freedoms have been stripped away. The government that is big enough to give you everything can also take everything from you.

Re:Congress should make net neutrality law

[Can'tNot]

Yes, congress should make a law. And then to enforce the law they'll need to appoint some people with oversight powers. And then to keep the law up-to-date with current technology they'll need to set some guidelines, and then choose some people who will apply those guidelines as congress intends for them to be applied.

To ensure that these appointed people aren't rogues who will go off-script, there will need to be some sort of nomination and confirmation process... Where Ajit Pai will tell congress that he intends to kill net neutrality, and congress will say, "Yep, this is the guy that we want."

Stop blaming the FCC for this. Pai is a thug, just doing what he was appointed to do.

Re:Congress should make net neutrality law

[JoePete]

It's insane that the FCC (an unelected body) had the authority for something like that to begin with.

You're making Pai's point. Congress should be the one who determines the extent to which ISPs should be regulated - not the FCC. Arguably, Congress already weighed in on this with the 1996 Telecommunications Act when it left broadband ISPs out of the category of "common carrier" (i.e. Title II) and subject to neutrality regulation. It was only in 2008 that the FCC, acting on its own, muscled in and told Comcast to stop throttling traffic. Comcast sued the FCC and won under the premise that the FCC did not have the authority to regulate broadband ISPs. So after being taken to task by an appeals court, the FCC responds in 2010 by adopting formal rules for regulating ISPs. This time Verizon sues them on the same basis - the FCC does not have the authority to adopt such rules. An appeals court again rules that the FCC is in the wrong because it is treating broadband ISPs as common carriers when in fact they have never been categorized as such. So in 2015, the FCC figures it out; it will just unilaterally categorize all ISPs as common carriers and thus subject to neutrality principles. This wasn't a Congressional Act. This was three (out of five) unelected commissioners that most Americans had never heard of voting to give themselves pretty significant regulatory power. In 2017, now with Pai as chair, they vote 3 to 2 repeal the rules.

All that the net neutrality debate has proven is that most Americans know little about Internet traffic and even less about their own government. Listen, if you love the Democrat-Republican blood bath that we are treated to hourly, by all means, continue to shout and stomp and advocate for more political fighting. If you believe in solving problems, I suggest picking up a copy of Magruder's American Government and walking into your city or town hall on occasion. You do realize, for example, that all that coax and fiber strung on the poles in your city or town is only there through a municipal contract with these service providers. And just like there are alternatives to Democrats and Republicans, there are alternatives to Comcast and Verizon. Sure, satellite, WiMax and other options may be expensive, but that is economics; sometimes you have to pay for quality. But the last thing any rational American should want is giving more power to a federal government that functions with all the maturity of two spoiled, out-of-touch brats constantly having a slap fight.

Re:Congress should make net neutrality law

[vux984]

"If congress betrays the people and passes an immoral and unjust law the people don't want, it is not a betrayal of the people nor is it corrupt to ignore it."

This is a strawman fallacy. "The Law" and the "Consitution" are very different things

The constitution is what gave congress authority to create the law. They are following the constitution as written. There is no strawman.

Just because YOU don't like a law they pass does not mean they betrayed anyone

To clarify: I'm talking laws that the majority don't support. This isn't about ME. That's an incorrect assumption you are making.

This is the REAL show of your ignorance and how contradictory and ignorant you are. Which is is? Where they duly passed or are they betraying you? If as you said "massively corrupt" then it is not possible for them to also be "in many cases...duly passed' So you either do not know what duly means or you are clearly not capable of keeping your own view points of of conflict with each other!

There is no contradiction. They were passed according to the rules. But the people didn't actually want them.

that's what voting is for... if you and the rest of your fellow voters are as ignorant as you, then THAT is why you think there is no solution.

Voting isn't a solution. Because there are only two major parties and in your own words...

EVERYTHING IS TRIBAL!! It is human nature,

So how does simply 'voting' get us to a solution?

Well that's dead wrong and another contradictory view point. How can people be basically good on both sides that have such hate for the other side?

Because most of us aren't extremists, and most of us get along just fine. I don't hate the 'other side'. I don't even hate the other sides politicians in the vast majority of instances.

I espouse "follow the law" not because of tribalism but because if you say ignore it then you cannot justify punishing those that break it for their morals either. That is a hypocrisy and hypocrisy like that not far away from murder, because many time such hypocrisy has been used to justify "dehumanizing" others so that their lives become less valuable. You have heard the terms before right? Calling people "inhuman" or saying they are not human?

You're argument is that the law is somehow already just, and that if we break the law we start classifying people as inhuman or devaluing their lives. I'm saying we already are doing that, so its a violation of the law to treat them as human beings.

Is sheltering an illegal migrant who would be killed if they were deported an evil act that reduces their humanity and devalues their life?

Was participating in the underground railroad, clearly in violation of the law of the day, a way to devalue human life?

You are making absolutist arguments that simply do not hold up to scrutiny.

Government tyranny has killed more than all war, pestilence, famine, or disaster.

I'm curious where you draw the lines. War is arguably part of government action, and famine and pestilence often follow in the wake of war.

Re: Congress should make net neutrality law

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad part is. Someone voted him up. A bunch of gibberish that isn't rooted in any reality gets voted up. Welcome to slashdot.

Re: Congress should make net neutrality law

[Anonymous Coward]

What? No, century link CHOSE to do that. They aren't required by law.

Re: Congress should make net neutrality law

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit, the requirement allowed notification along with a bill--which every other ISP did. They were the only ones who decided to hijack their customers' connection to notify them.

Don't thank Congress

[rsilvergun]

thank the GOP. There have been a few votes to save Net Neutrality and they were lost along party lines (a few GOPers did break ranks but it wasn't enough).

I know folks don't like partisanship, but there are partisan issues and NN is one of them. Had Trump lost the election we wouldn't be reading this story today. Had the Democrats taken the Senate & House by a wide enough majority to override vetos we would be reading about the upcoming vote to restore NN. These aren't debatable points, they're just facts. Cold, hard facts.

We've got another election in about 2 years. Show up at your primary. The Dems have a wing that refuses corporate PAC money. If Net Neutrality matters to you then you know what to do.

Re:Don't thank Congress

[LynnwoodRooster]

What's the downside of no Net Neutrality? Was the Internet a wasteland prior to 2015? Is the fact that Internet speeds are up 40% over the last year a bad thing? What did the brief, regulation-by-executive-directive Net Neutrality time bring?

Re:Don't thank Congress

[Anonymous Coward]

Most gas stations probably aren't going to short you at the pump, but isn't it nice knowing that there are rules in place to prevent them from doing so/punish them if they do?

Re:Don't thank Congress

[LynnwoodRooster]

Yep! And with Internet speeds increasing by 40% per year, what's the downside? I get more than I pay for, but then - I don't use the crap my ISP provided as a router and WIFI modem. I used to get 25-40 Mbps down with the original Spectrum stuff, but when I quickly replaced it with a Netgear router and Orbi WIFI system, I'm getting solid 110-120 Mbps down - from the 100 Mbps connectivity I pay for. So if someone has an issue, is it the crap router they got "for free", or the service itself?

Re:Don't thank Congress

[nehumanuscrede]

"thank the GOP. There have been a few votes to save Net Neutrality and they were lost along party lines (a few GOPers did break ranks but it wasn't enough).

I know folks don't like partisanship, but there are partisan issues and NN is one of them. Had Trump lost the election we wouldn't be reading this story today. Had the Democrats taken the Senate & House by a wide enough majority to override vetos we would be reading about the upcoming vote to restore NN. These aren't debatable points, they're just facts. Cold, hard facts.

We've got another election in about 2 years. Show up at your primary. The Dems have a wing [justicedemocrats.com] that refuses corporate PAC money. If Net Neutrality matters to you then you know what to do."

Man I've got some bad news for you.

Looking at your userid, you're likely old enough to have seen your share of elections go by.
Has anything within our Government really improved much over the past twenty years or so ? Anything at all ?

Has the quality of life in America improved or degraded since say . . . . the 90's ?

Think about who has been in charge since then and you start to realize, there is no winning team.

Re:Don't thank Congress

[DNS-and-BIND]

That Justice Democrats wing sure looks like the far left to me. What's their stance on microaggressions?

Re: Don't thank Congress

[Monster_user]

I get 5mbps, and no ISP actually services my area since at least 2016, so 5mbps is grandfathered legacy DSL.

As a result, you could say I've actually seen a decrease in internet speeds, not an increase. 5mbps to 0.

I don't get celullar service worth squat to use a hotspot. Cable, DSL, and Fiber are not available in my area, and satellite has ridiculous caps on data, such as 10GB per month.

Guess I'm on the wrong side of the cow pasture... "Big City" is just down the road on the other side of that cow pasture. Maybe five miles?

Re:Don't thank Congress

[Anonymous Coward]

And had the democrats taken the whole ball of wax NN would be the LEAST of our worries! You think things are bad under republicans and trump - things would be/will be FAR worse under a totalitarian democrat rule. We will look like Venezuela! If that's what you want, please by all means MOVE there. We need to get rid of ALL democrats and ALL republicans - lock stock and barrel!

Re:Don't thank Congress

[cascadingstylesheet]

I know folks don't like partisanship,

{checks site logo to make sure I'm on /., spews coffee}

Re:Don't thank Congress

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent troll.

Seriously, I'm done talking about this. If you don't understand the difference between a telecommunications and an information service provider and haven't bothered to read even the most basic information surrounding this argument then I can only assume you are are a troll.

This is an extremely basic idea that my five year old nephew understands. If you don't see how it's a problem, then you are either a moron or purposely trying to get a rise out of people.

Re:Don't thank Congress

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think Hillary would have fought for net neutrality, you are mistaken.

Re:Don't thank Congress

[JoePete]

Ultimately Congress has abdicated it's law making role because, heaven forbid, a lawmaker take a position and risk losing his or her seat. As such, increasingly we have seen legislation by executive action whether directly or indirectly through agencies like the FCC. Net Neutrality was a series of rules facilitated by a 3-2 vote of FCC in 2015. It was basically three people changing two decades of policy that had been in existence under both Democrat and Republican administrations and Congresses. Big whoop, in 2017, we have a 3-2 vote to repeal. This is Congressional politics descending to federal agencies. Flipping and flopping with whoever is in control. Never getting anything done. We don't have a democracy in the U.S. it's an idiocracy. This is like going to a baseball game, a fight breaks out between the two teams, a player whips a baseball at an opposing player, who ducks, and somehow the two teams are able to convince the umpire and fans to debate whether it should be called a ball or strike - like somehow how their chaos, immaturity, and fighting are legitimate. If you really want change, stop voting for the major parties.

Re: Don't thank Congress

[Anonymous Coward]

Speeds went up for people testing their speed on speed test sites? Yea because that tells us the whole story. All ISPs open up their pipes to speed test sites. This is a fact. Speed test stats have nothing to do with reality.

As for proof of why we need NN, see that fabulous post sitting at +5? Yea you might want to read what he has to say.

Re: Don't thank Congress

[Anonymous Coward]

I noticed you stopped posting links to your claims. Because they've already been debunked.

For those that don't know, he is lying. His stats come from a site that measured speeds to speed test sites. Everyone knows iSPs leave their pipes wide open to speed test sites. The other citation I seen posted was measuring the speed GLOBALLY. Aka it wasn't measuring America's speed as a whole. And when they did "measure" the USA speeds we went from 21st on the list to 20th.

So to sum it up, the nation that CREATED the fucking internet, went from 21st in speeds to 20th. Yayyyy progress.

Re: Don't thank Congress

[Anonymous Coward]

What? Hillary was FOR NN. She supported Obama when he wanted it in place.

Re: Don't thank Congress

[LynnwoodRooster]

I stopped linking because I posted the link a few times. What data do you have that shows otherwise?

job security

[renegade600]

he was really thanking congress for helping him secure an extremely high paying job for when he leaves government service.

Re: Thanks for the flamebait stories

[Anonymous Coward]

This comment will be disappeared in five minutes, but thanks for the flamebait propaganda hit pieces, child Beau.

Re: Thanks for the flamebait stories

[Anonymous Coward]

If only we had net neutrality, slashdot would go back to the the policy of (almost) never deleting comments!

Known lying faggot Lyinwood here to obfuscate

[Anonymous Coward]

With unrelated tapdancing and red herrings, once again.

Re:Known lying faggot Lyinwood here to obfuscate

[LynnwoodRooster]

So what's the downside of no net neutrality? Concrete examples? I see lots of predictions - but none of them came true. If anything, things are moving as they did before NN kicked in - constantly improving for consumers...

Re:Known lying faggot Lyinwood here to obfuscate

[OYAHHH]

Is that the best you got AC? Because the truth is Internet speeds are up and something called competition is greatly responsible for that!

Re:Known lying faggot Lyinwood here to obfuscate

[Zontar The Mindless]

RTFS. A couple of them are listed there.

Re:Known lying faggot Lyinwood here to obfuscate

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't know, and you are on /. , you really need to move onto a better tech site. Like buzzfeed.

Re:Known lying faggot Lyinwood here to obfuscate

[DarkMagician07]

What competition?

I can't use my cell phone for all the computers in my home to get online, so that's not competition. I have 2 choices where I live, slow DSL from the phone company or fast cable connectivity with a cap based on some arbitrary number. Neither is the best option, and fiber will likely never be available where I'm at due to it being a rural area without thousands of people to sign up to it.

Until ALL lines are available to ALL providers without lease requirements from the incumbents who can drop lessees, there is no real competition. If the cable company came out tomorrow and said all users in my zip code now have to pay 1000% more for internet, we'd have to just suck it up and pay.

Re:Known lying faggot Lyinwood here to obfuscate

[Xenx]

The reality is that things are moving forward now, as they were during NN, and as they were before NN. You want concrete evidence that there is a downside to the repeal of NN, but you provide no concrete evidence of there being a downside to maintaining NN. We already have factual evidence of some of the activities that were starting to happen before NN went into place. While it's speculative that those activities will continue after it's been repealed, it is fair to assume it's likely to happen. As to your claim that things are improving now as they were before NN kicked in, you're probably right. However, that overlooks the fact that those improvements were most likely planned before the repeal. NN, in either direction, likely has little to do with improvements. The only "evidence" I can provide is in relation to the rural ISP I work for. There are three major causes for speed improvements for our customers.

First, streaming use is picking up across the board. It even seems to be growing among the elderly. Customer's need/want service capable of supporting it.

Second, there is a minimum speed requirement to take part in the Connect America Fund. While we already had our minimum speed package meeting the requirements, we had plenty of grandfathered users on old packages we had to push to upgrade.

Third, we're a telephone comapany. There is only so much we can do with DSL. Infrastructure isn't cheap to upgrade, and can't be done over night. We've been building fiber out, for well over a year, to anywhere it's remotely feasible.

Finally, for what it's worth I live outside our service area. I'm stuck with Comcast. I'm not complaining about the speeds, as they offer packages up to 2Gbps in my area. I personally have no issues, but I have three co-workers that live nearby as well. They all complain about the throttling from Comcast, which I'm aware is due to network usage in their neighborhoods and not Comcast throttling arbitrarily. But, because of how their boost works, that throttling only affects real world internet performance and not speed tests. This means speedtest results are going to be misleading compared to average bandwidth for any time/area where Comcast sees high usage.

Re:Known lying faggot Lyinwood here to obfuscate

[fustakrakich]

Competition? Please. If there were competition, the CenturyLink screw up would have been limited to the LAN in their office.

Re:Known lying faggot Lyinwood here to obfuscate

[JoePete]

For the sake of argument, DSL has always been considered common carrier - that it is to say it has always been subject to the FCC's neutrality rules. So if you believe in net neutrality, by all means, use that DSL line. On the contrary, broadband ISPs coming over fiber, coax, satellite, microwave, etc., up until 2015 weren't considered common carriers and are no longer considered common carrier. Which category seems to have undergone the most progress?

Let put this another way. Bad people exist, that is a given. You have bad CEOs running ISPs, but isn't also likely that you will have bad people who become FCC commissioners? So would you rather be subject to the bad people who are FCC commissioners, who have no vested interest in whether you get quality Internet service, or would you rather be subject to the bad CEO who at least has to work a little bit to earn your and other subscriber's monthly dollars?

Re: Known lying faggot Lyinwood here to obfuscate

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation, because the only citation you repubtards post are from GLOBAL stats and stats that are from speed test sites. Basically two stats that skew your way. Two stats that mean absolutely nothing in the context of this conversation.

Re: Known lying faggot Lyinwood here to obfuscate

[Anonymous Coward]

What you don't understand is, that if you have a monopoly then you also DO NOT have a vested interest in improving the service. And that's the fucking problem. Fix the monopoly situation so we can let our money talk. Right now we can't let our money talk because the ISPs have a monopoly. This isn't rocket science.

You keep looking at it from the angle "government bad". While also saying "CEO's will do the right thing" all while ignoring that a) the government handles something's better than private business, and b) they have a monopoly so they don't give a fuck about giving u a good service. The CEOs are actively working to extract as much money as possible while delivering the least possible service.

Also, how does putting regulation on something make it government owned? No one is saying give the internet to the government to let them run it. What we are saying it, let's make some laws that have teeth that protect US, the consumers.

Congrats Varadaraj & Radha

[forty-2]

It's every parents dream to give their child more than they had. To bring them up in a new land, where they can grow up and work hard to erode that country's freedoms.
You must be beaming with pride.

Re: Congrats Varadaraj & Radha

[Anonymous Coward]

Net âoeneutralityâ = more government control = less freedom

Therefore, repealing net âoeneutralityâ = more freedom

Therefore Ajit Pai = freedom fighter

Yay for Ajit and his deservedly proud parents!

Re: Congrats Varadaraj & Radha

[Anonymous Coward]

Only a repubtard would think like this.
I bet if NN was a pro business law, you apes would be drooling all over it.

Re: Thanks for the flamebait stories

[Anonymous Coward]

Creimertard. Delete thread.

Other issues besides NN

[Anonymous Coward]

With all this focus on Net Neutrality, there are other issues to discuss.

The big telecom companies are investing their profits in non-telecom industries. Verizon bought Yahoo, AOL, and some other internet hosting companies. Alternately, big telecoms are buying TV and movie studios. Shouldn't telecom stick to their industry, and offer lower prices instead?

If the power of a natural monopoly is so great, why hasn't municipal owned fiber optic networks seen more success? While 10 to 20 year ago, there was much talk of things like municipal wifi, but today, there are not many municipal wifi networks in the real world.

Re:Other issues besides NN

[DarkMagician07]

Muni broadband fails in most areas because states have granted monopolies to the telco's and cable companies. The only reason the fiber behind my house isn't lit is because the telco for the area said they'd sue if it was. It doesn't matter that the Public Utilities District owns the lines, it's because it would provide the service that the state granted to the telco/cable company. There was a big deal when cable started allowing two-way communications over it's network in the late 90's because the telcos believed they were the only ones allowed to provide bi-directional services such as the internet.

Until the monopolies on telecommunications via any device are broken up, that's the story for anyone who doesn't live in a densely populated enough region. It's also why I seem to have higher taxes and service fees for the same internet my friends and family get, just because I live in a rural area and they live in a city.

Re:Other issues besides NN

[fustakrakich]

why hasn't municipal owned fiber optic networks seen more success?

One word: Litigation

Re:Net Neutrality dies...

[Anonymous Coward]

The brainless crowd repeat what the other zombies tell them to repeat.

The FCC net neutrality was likely to die in the courts anyway because it was very likely illegal.

Congress should do their job, not have an unaccountable + unelected bureaucracy come up with a novel reading of an 80 year old law.

The FCC net neutrality was a shitty thicket bureautic mess of vague rules meant only to cause internet service providers to not want to invest in new infrastructure because it was a hand out to lawyers.

Hero thanks world for helping him kill Ajit Pai

[Anonymous Coward]

Future headline I'd love to see!

Re: Thanks for the flamebait stories

[Anonymous Coward]

Back on topic, there are hardware concentrators available for next to nothing now with VPN service to NN-loving regions like Europe for under $10/mo. Add that to whatever you pay for your monthly comcast service, and you aren't going to notice any significant price hikes. Just a thought.

Net Nuetrality hasn't been replealed yet

[rsilvergun]

there's still numerous lawsuits going on. I can't believe I have to even say this on /., but the downsides are:

a. Price increases. ISP will leverage their control of the pipes to charge us more for services like on demand video.

b. Censorship. Again, ISP no longer have to treat all packets equally. That means if they don't like the Alt-Right (or the left) they can ban them.

c. No innovation. Small players won't even be able to get started because they won't be able to afford the bandwidth fees.

d. No more ala cart streaming services. No More cord cutting. It's only NN that made these possible. Say goodbye to Netflix, Crunchyroll and Youtube. Even the big guys won't be able to compete when the ISPs can charge them but not you. Same thing happened with Microsoft. Nobody could compete with them because they could leverage their defacto monopoly.

If I may digress for a moment longer: This is a constant thing I hear on the right and I'm fucking sick of it. To wit:

"We don't need this regulation to stop a bad thing because the bad thing is not happening".

It's like saying Murder can be legal because nobody I know got murdered this week. It's nonsensical and in any other aspect of life folks would call it out as bullshit. But there's a multi million dollar propaganda machine trying to get folks to distrust and hate regulation in general so the rich and powerful can splay us open and gut us like fish. And we're bloody god damned letting it happen.

Re:Net Nuetrality hasn't been replealed yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone mod this up ferchrissakes.

Re:Net Nuetrality hasn't been replealed yet

[cascadingstylesheet]

b. Censorship. Again, ISP no longer have to treat all packets equally. That means if they don't like the Alt-Right (or the left) they can ban them.

So in other words, what's already happening (in only one political direction though) but at the packet layer.

Should save you guys some work; now you won't have to do it at the domain registrar, payment processors, etc.

Re:Net Nuetrality hasn't been replealed yet

[penandpaper]

Why is competition not the answer and how will NN promote competition?

Do you have any evidence that A, B, C, D and will happen when before these rules came to be none of those things were true?

The murder is thing is ridiculous and you know it. Even if the worst examples that advocates of NN claim come true, it would still not be in the same realm of murder. I can't take you or the issue seriously if you cannot act like an adult. Screeching about murder in the same discussion makes it seem like you are a child brainwashed by hippy parents. Stop it.

Re:Net Nuetrality hasn't been replealed yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Competition isn't the answer because broadband is effectively a monopoly. It is incredibly expensive to build out cable and fiber networks, and even beyond municipalities signing exclusivity agreements, high-speed providers are inherently going to have limited competition. I literally can't choose another provider unless I want to cut my speed to a tenth of what it is right now.

NN isn't supposed to increase competition--it's supposed to prevent the effective monopolies of ISPs from taking advantage of their monopolistic states by charging additional fees to access, or limit access to, either competing content providers (Comcast would prefer you watch stuff on Hulu, not Netflix) or sites that pay for priority access (Comcast gets a ten million dollars from Vimeo to give it more bandwidth than Youtube).
Comcast has already been caught throttling Netflix until it paid a ridiculous fee, so it's clearly on the radar of the big ISPs.

Re:Net Nuetrality hasn't been replealed yet

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think you understand how analogies work.

Re:Net Nuetrality hasn't been replealed yet

[JoePete]

What net neutrality essentially permitted was the FCC to regulate broadband ISPs by moving them from information services (largely unregulated) to common carriers (regulated). What would prevent the FCC from facilitating any of the A-D concerns you raise? An easy one to pick on is B - censorship. Consider that in 2004, CBS was fined $550,000 for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe" malfunction. Can you imagine where this could go with ISPs? You raise a good point about cord-cutting but you might not realize that it inadvertently is an argument against net neutrality. Netflix and other streaming services are categorized as Title I services by the FCC. They are information services (i.e. not regulated). Were they instead treated like broadcast networks (i.e. Title II), I think you are right, they wouldn't exist.

Re:Net Nuetrality hasn't been replealed yet

[Anonymous Coward]

There was no net neutrality laws up until a few years ago, and those things you fear didn't happen. Of course there were some extremely minor incidents where it did, but the laws of the time were used to end the problem.

Net neutrality isn't net neutral. It makes the ISP's a government governed service like electricity and gas. This means that the government has the right to control the "quality" of that service. How do you define quality? I'll bet that's a lot different from how the government would. This law is ripe for abuse just like the Patriot Act abomination was. It allows the governmetn to tax internet usage and if viewed the right way could allow the government to allow only certain content into your home. 1984...

Re: Net Nuetrality hasn't been replealed yet

[Anonymous Coward]

So that throttled Netflix situation didn't happen? Cox cutting off internet access for DCMA violations that were false didn't happen? The ISPs currently don't have a monopoly and aren't abusing it?

There is a reason the ONLY people who don't want net neutrality are 1) people who are paid to not support it(Pai) and 2) people who blindly follow partisan lines and parrot talking points from partisan news sites.

You repubtards are like a cancer. Fox mentions something that is obviously false; and you guys parrot it and spread it like a disease.

Re:Net Nuetrality hasn't been replealed yet

[Anonymous Coward]

The murder is thing is ridiculous and you know it. Even if the worst examples that advocates of NN claim come true, it would still not be in the same realm of murder. I can't take you or the issue seriously if you cannot act like an adult. Screeching about murder in the same discussion makes it seem like you are a child brainwashed by hippy parents. Stop it.

Arguing by absurdity is a valid form. Had GP chosen a lesser crime like theft, then it would have seemed *more* absurd because people are more willing to commit those acts. Just like they're willing to screw over the little guy without being regulated. An unregulated competitive environment becomes a monopoly over time. NN is a form of FedGov regulation imposed on a (local government mandated) monopoly.

Re:Net Nuetrality hasn't been replealed yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is competition not the answer

False dichotomy. The whole fucking point of NN is to force competition in a nationwide marketplace that is perfectly happy to collude with itself to prevent competition.

how will NN promote competition?

Because you apparently have no reading comprehension skills, you've also failed to realize that A, B, C, and D above are the bad anti-competition behaviors that NN prohibits.

Do you have any evidence that A, B, C, D and will happen when before these rules came to be none of those things were true?

No one in their right mind would bother responding to your request for evidence. It's all over the damn place. A simple google search will find it. You just refuse to see it because your masters have declared "regulation = bad" and you parrot it like the good dog you are.

Hint: NN as a policy was created because of those exact behaviors being a reality prior to it's existence.

rant:
Do you honestly think that we'd waste time standing around arguing with the idiot masses over creating new regulations that would rile up their masters for nothing!? Do you think we don't have better things to invest our time on? We'd love not being required to do this, we'd absolutely love it if corporations would behave without constantly fucking everyone over for their own selfish gain. But because that reality is a pure work of fiction, we have to waste our time slapping corporations across the face with new "don't be a dick by doing X specific method" regulations, and shouting down morons like you that make good cannon fodder for the rich and powerful. Honestly, we'd think you would get tired of being a used like a street hooker after so long, but you continue to disappoint everyone.

/rant

DO NOT PANICK

[Anonymous Coward]

This only affects the USA.

The rest of us can keep on going about our business.

Re:DO NOT PANICK

[Anonymous Coward]

"This only affects the USA."
Really? Keeping a giant internet space UNREGULATED BY ANY GOVERNMENT doesn't affect the rest of you all. Okay, our mistake.

Re: DO NOT PANICK

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, we just rather hand them a monopoly and bend over and take their gifts up the ass. The repubtard way.

Muh Bandwidth wuz STRANGLED!

[Mr307]

Every time I see these 'net neutrality' things all I can think about is Idiocracy and the 'its got electrolytes' bit, and the NN version of the same is 'muh bandwidth wuz stranglified'.

Competition in a zero sum environment:

The total bandwidth available is not short time frame elastic, its completely static. So an example for sake of argument under the imposed 'bad' NN rules the 'muh bandwidth wuz stranglified' people keep pushing for:
Netflix in North America uses 50%(whatever the real number is doesn't matter) of available bandwidth and pays the same as everyone else under that rule, ISP/trunking/peering companies are unable to charge them more by the imposed rules.
Along comes SUPERNetflix with double goodness and 4X the bandwidth use which everyone starts using because double is mo gooderer, and now they use say 99% of the available bandwidth and the same ISP/trunking/peering companies (yes these numbers are exaggerated) are unable to charge more or negotiate a throttling plan due to the imposed rules.

The net result is all internet traffic is essentially throttled down to a max of 1% and the ISP is handcuffed, unable to charge for fair use, or throttle in the best interest of its customers.

Thats just 1 example I could think of easily, there are probably many more, 1 more would be something along the lines of a barrier to entry for a modest bandwidth need company having to pay the higher average prices rather than working out a deal short or long term. Basically they have to compete against the biggest companies paying for the same services.

What we get is articles and reports of throttling which cannot be substantiated without having monitoring at every hop along the way to rule out bandwidth being used for other purposes. And bad marketing ideas like the one from the summary, which has nothing to do with NN as its the ISP using their own bandwidth for their own purposes (see below).

If we really wanted to do something concrete to improve internet for everyone, disallow local/regional ISP monopolies in their various forms and see what happens.

Re: Muh Bandwidth wuz STRANGLED!

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Netflix the customer or am I the customer that asked for Netflix. Charge me more for access to something I want.

Re: Muh Bandwidth wuz STRANGLED!

[Anonymous Coward]

But then ISPs can't oversubscribe! If ISPs had to charge for the bandwidth they were capable of supporting, then they wouldn't be able to claim to have met the Obama era 10mbps for everybody request! Their poor profit margins would not be competitive with guys like Jeff Bezos! Won't somebody think pf the profit margins!? ISPs are not utilities, they are for-profits!

Re:Muh Bandwidth wuz STRANGLED!

[dgatwood]

Every time I see these 'net neutrality' things all I can think about is Idiocracy and the 'its got electrolytes' bit, and the NN version of the same is 'muh bandwidth wuz stranglified'.

Competition in a zero sum environment:

The total bandwidth available is not short time frame elastic, its completely static. So an example for sake of argument under the imposed 'bad' NN rules the 'muh bandwidth wuz stranglified' people keep pushing for: Netflix in North America uses 50%(whatever the real number is doesn't matter) of available bandwidth and pays the same as everyone else under that rule, ISP/trunking/peering companies are unable to charge them more by the imposed rules. Along comes SUPERNetflix with double goodness and 4X the bandwidth use which everyone starts using because double is mo gooderer, and now they use say 99% of the available bandwidth and the same ISP/trunking/peering companies (yes these numbers are exaggerated) are unable to charge more or negotiate a throttling plan due to the imposed rules.

The net result is all internet traffic is essentially throttled down to a max of 1% and the ISP is handcuffed, unable to charge for fair use, or throttle in the best interest of its customers.

Actually, you're wrong on pretty much every count here. For any sufficiently large ISP, Netflix will *give* the ISP a caching box for their data center that will take the vast majority of Netflix traffic entirely off of the upstream pipes. The only cost to them, other than the electricity to power the box and the cost of square footage to house it, is the cost of upgrading the infrastructure from the central office to the customer, which is usually a matter of upgrading the equipment at both ends. And given how often customer premises equipment fails and has to be replaced, it is usually just a matter of upgrading the equipment at the head end. In other words, it is highly short-term elastic.

And even if an ISP doesn't have that arrangement, nobody runs only a single fiber anywhere, so in practice, there is *always* extra fiber capacity available for upgrading the connection between two ISPs.

So the only way you would see the problems you're describing is if an ISP like Comcast gets too big for its britches and insists that Netflix pays a monthly fee to put that caching box in their data center, and then refuses to upgrade the peering point between the ISP's network and Netflix's ISP's network. Which it did. And their mutual customers got screwed, mainly because Comcast thought that throttling Netflix (and only Netflix) would cause more people to buy video-on-demand content from Comcast. And obviously it worked, or else they would have quickly discontinued that experiment.

Short of some sort of regulatory penalty against Comcast and similar ISPs when they pull these shenanigans, nothing will change. Net neutrality was an attempt to use the FCC's regulatory powers to do so. Unfortunately, because their interpretation of the law was purely a regulatory position rather than an explicit piece of legislation, it was subject to the whims of a given administration, and went away when the administration did.

Re:Muh Bandwidth wuz STRANGLED!

[penandpaper]

The only cost to them, other than the electricity to power the box and the cost of square footage to house it, is the cost of upgrading the infrastructure from the central office to the customer, which is usually a matter of upgrading the equipment at both ends.

An ISP should pay Netflix's rack-space and electricity bill because ???
Netflix should decide when and where an ISP upgrade its infrastructure because ???

Meanwhile, your solution seems to be the government force ISP's to eat those costs because Netflix and Comcast are fighting.

Netflix throttled it's customers and blamed ISPs and from your comment it's apparent why. They want free rack-space, free electricity and the ability to decide an ISP upgrade rollout forced by the government.

Re: Muh Bandwidth wuz STRANGLED!

[Dynedain]

The ISP doesnâ(TM)t connect directly to Netflix and has no financial arrangement with Netflix. The ISP pays their backbone provider for the unbalanced data coming into the ISPâ(TM)s network. Netflix offered free caching servers so the ISPs could reduce their bandwidth on the backbone and peering agreements, directly reducing their costs. Why wouldnâ(TM)t they take it? Oh, right, because online video services are a threat to the legacy cable TV goose that is reaching menopause and no longer laying golden eggs.

Re:Muh Bandwidth wuz STRANGLED!

[Rhipf]

So an example for sake of argument under the imposed 'bad' NN rules the 'muh bandwidth wuz stranglified' people keep pushing for:
Netflix in North America uses 50%(whatever the real number is doesn't matter) of available bandwidth and pays the same as everyone else under that rule, ISP/trunking/peering companies are unable to charge them more by the imposed rules.

The problem with this statement is that Netflix doesn't pay "the same as everyone else under that rule". They pay a hell of a lot more than I do for Internet access. If Netflix somehow managed to use 99% of the Internet bandwidth that means that 99% of the traffic requests on the Internet are coming from people who wanting Netfix content. Those people are paying their ISP for that requested traffic.
ISPs asking Netflix to pay so they aren't throttled won't make any difference to those 99% requesting Netflix content (other than it will take longer for them to access that content if Netflix doesn't pay). All that will happen is that the 1% of requested traffic will be able to access that content faster (assuming that the other 99% don't decide to move to another service that will then also take up 99% of bandwidth). The only thing that will be accomplished is that your ISP will make more money and be able to start a competing service to Netflix that isn't throttled.

Re: Muh Bandwidth wuz STRANGLED!

[penandpaper]

Netflix offered free caching servers

Which require rack-space and electricity. Do those costs offset the bandwidth savings? If an ISP gives such favorable treatment to Netflix do they have to give the same treatment to any streaming service/information service provider? Is the ISP liable for colluding with Netflix against a Netflix competitor if they don't offer the same "free" services?

Re: Muh Bandwidth wuz STRANGLED!

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't understand the issue.
Comcast started throttling Netflix because they were taking up a lot of bandwidth. So Netflix said, ok to fix this we will give you guys caching boxes FOR free to help ease the traffic. Comcast being Comcast said fuck you pay me.

Comcast should not be in the business of selecting what company gets what amount of bandwidth. Period. You pay for the bandwidth and you have that pipe. Nothing more nothing less. Netflix already paid for their pipe, as did the consumers who were watching Netflix thru their ISPs. This was a case of Comcast double dipping.

Re: Muh Bandwidth wuz STRANGLED!

[Mr307]

Clearly you do not understand. The speeds quoted at the ISP side barely matter beyond a certain point, no doubt most of the time they are able to deliver that rate for their local connection as advertised, but to suggest that getting that advertised packet rate everywhere on the internet is completely ignorant of how the thing works.

You will not get your 'rated' bandwidth pretty much anywhere but very local to you say within a hop or 3, every hop away adds more latency and all packet speeds are determined by local throughput of each.

Quick sample trace edited to show some important bits, me on my computer somewhere.
  7 47 ms 47 ms 49 ms rc2nr-be110-1.wp.shawcable.net [66.163.76.58]
  8 69 ms 67 ms 67 ms rc3fs-hge0-7-0-0.mt.shawcable.net [66.163.76.22]
  9 75 ms 79 ms 80 ms rc1eqn-tge0-0-0-0.uk.shawcable.net [66.163.78.14]
10 86 ms 83 ms 83 ms rc3ar-tge0-14-0-7.ed.shawcable.net [66.163.75.81
11 83 ms 85 ms 85 ms ge-4-1-0.mpr1.iad10.us.mfnx.net [206.126.236.86]
12 89 ms 83 ms 83 ms ae6.cr1.dca2.us.zip.zayo.com [64.125.20.117]
Destination site elsewhere, 5 networks crossed a total of 20 or so hops for 1 connection.

All of those routers are rate limited in some way, any one of them could be saturated temporarily or otherwise and cause a slowdown for through traffic.

I believe but haven't looked into it in a while that most peering agreements today are still voluntary and something close to 1:1 for traffic on/off. NN really puts a damper on this business angle of the equation.

In short no, you pay for a maximum rate not a guaranteed rate. And chances are you get more down rate than up rate, because generally peering costs are for putting traffic on the network.

Re: Muh Bandwidth wuz STRANGLED!

[Dynedain]

This has nothing to do with bandwidth, and everything to do with the total amount of traffic on a network (bandwidth is simultaneous capacity, not total volume over a period, which is how all the peering agreements are structured).

Yes, the lopsided peering agreements cost the ISPs far far more than the electricity costs for a couple of rack mounted boxes. Consumer ISPs generally have much more download traffic than upload traffic, and so they end up paying the backbone providers rather than the other way around.

How is it "favorable treatment" on the ISP's side to reduce the ISP's costs? The ISP didn't initiate it, and the ISP isn't the one making the offer, Netflix is.

CDN providers make similar arrangements to get their boxes inside ISPs' networks to improve latency to customers and reduce the ISPs' costs. Comcast singled out Netflix because it's a threat to their legacy business model.

Re: Muh Bandwidth wuz STRANGLED!

[penandpaper]

Yes, the lopsided peering agreements cost the ISPs far far more than the electricity costs for a couple of rack mounted boxes.

Would those agreements still be made if streaming services, like Netflix, didn't exist? If so then it is a moot point. But that is hardly the entire issue. How many other streaming/information services does the ISP have to house? Why is Netflix able to dictate the business of a different company? A couple here a couple there add up quickly. Besides, just because it is cost effective doesn't mean that an ISP has to do whatever Netflix demands.

How is it "favorable treatment" on the ISP's side to reduce the ISP's costs? The ISP didn't initiate it, and the ISP isn't the one making the offer, Netflix is.

Doesn't matter who made the offer. Netflix is colluding with an ISP for better market dominance. If another competitor requested the same thing, does the ISP have to agree? Is the ISP liable for damages if they refuse? It is up for an ISP to decide what will reduce their costs and not an outside company demanding free rack space and electricity.

because it's a threat to their legacy business model

Netflix isn't innocent in this. They throttled their own customers and blamed it on ISPs.

Re:Muh Bandwidth wuz STRANGLED!

[dgatwood]

An ISP should pay Netflix's rack-space and electricity bill because ???

A few key points should explain it:

• The nature of the Internet is that each party must pay for its own bandwidth to the nearest backbone. Netflix pays for the bandwidth it uses to get its data to the backbone by paying its upstream ISP, who pays its upstream ISP, and so on. Similarly, Comcast must do the same.
• The caching equipment reduces the bandwidth, and thus the cost, of both of those connections. Therefore, it benefits Comcast and Netflix approximately equally.
• The hardware costs a lot of money (racks of RAID arrays aren't cheap), and Netflix provides that hardware. Thus, given the equal benefits, it seems entirely reasonable for Comcast to foot the (funny-money) bill for a place to store it plus the trivial cost of electricity, which is dramatically less expensive than the upstream bandwidth they would otherwise have to pay for, and even over the long term, also costs dramatically less than the hardware.

In short, the caching approach represents huge savings for Comcast, and gives them a cost split that is very much in their favor compared with the 50-50 cost split that would occur if they had to pay for bandwidth to the backbone to handle that traffic. The only alternatives are for Comcast to either pay more by using bandwidth and pay a larger percentage of the total cost or to throttle Netflix in an anticompetitive manner and get sued.

Netflix should decide when and where an ISP upgrade its infrastructure because ???

Netflix does no such thing. They provide higher-quality stream options, and the ISP's customers either care enough to demand that the ISP improve its bandwidth or they don't.

Meanwhile, your solution seems to be the government force ISP's to eat those costs because Netflix and Comcast are fighting.

No, the government should force the ISP to eat those costs because Comcast is a monopoly that is behaving anticompetitively.

Re:Muh Bandwidth wuz STRANGLED!

[penandpaper]

Again, it seems that you are saying that Netflix can dictate the business of an ISP to be favorable to Netflix hidden behind the "customers either care enough to demand that the ISP improve its bandwidth or they don't.". As I have asked below:

How many other streaming services/information service providers does the ISP have to accommodate with free rack-space and electricity? Netflix is colluding with an ISP for better market dominance. If a competitor to Netflix requested the same thing, does the ISP have to agree? Is the ISP liable for damages if they refuse? At what point is an ISP just free rack space and electricity for information service providers because you view it as "trivial cost". It is up for an ISP to decide what will reduce their costs and not an outside company demanding free rack space and electricity.

Re: Muh Bandwidth wuz STRANGLED!

[dgatwood]

Netflix offered free caching servers

Which require rack-space and electricity. Do those costs offset the bandwidth savings?

For an ISP the size of Comcast and a content provide the size of Netflix, it is cheaper by nearly four orders of magnitude. Netflix actually publishes information about their caching servers online, though I can't find the power specifications, so I can only take a rough guess based on the typical power consumption of blade servers in that form factor.

I would not expect a 2U rack unit to draw much more than 1 kW of power, which at 8 cents per kWH costs about $700 per year to keep it powered. Each box can provide 10 GB per second of throughput, which is enough to handle 26,000 streams at 3 Mbps (this is an arbitrary example), or 2.6 cents per continuous stream per year. By contrast, a single upstream T3 trunk line costs about $36,000 per year, and can provide enough bandwidth for about ten streams at 3 Mbps, or $1,200 per continuous stream per year.

If an ISP gives such favorable treatment to Netflix do they have to give the same treatment to any streaming service/information service provider?

No, most streaming providers partner with companies like Akamai to do the same thing until they get big enough to warrant their own servers. And when they do, the ISP would be utterly stupid to not agree to a similar arrangement—utterly stupid almost beyond the limits of human imagination.

Re: Muh Bandwidth wuz STRANGLED!

[dgatwood]

Yes, the lopsided peering agreements cost the ISPs far far more than the electricity costs for a couple of rack mounted boxes.

Would those agreements still be made if streaming services, like Netflix, didn't exist? If so then it is a moot point.

The agreements would exist, but the total traffic (and thus, the total cost of those agreements) would be much, much less.

But that is hardly the entire issue. How many other streaming/information services does the ISP have to house? Why is Netflix able to dictate the business of a different company? A couple here a couple there add up quickly. Besides, just because it is cost effective doesn't mean that an ISP has to do whatever Netflix demands.

The reason the ISP has to do it is because they are a monopoly, and their only viable legal alternative is to provide enough bandwidth to their upstream providers so that their in-house video-on-demand services are not guilty of unfair competition against external video-on-demand services like Netflix et al. And the answer to the question of how many other services is "all of them" with the sole exceptions being external service that are so small that it is cheaper to provide enough bandwidth instead.

Or if they would prefer, Comcast could shut down all of their cable TV and video-on-demand services and become a pure ISP.

Those are the options.

Re: Muh Bandwidth wuz STRANGLED!

[dgatwood]

Netflix isn't innocent in this. They throttled their own customers and blamed it on ISPs.

Citation needed.

As far as I'm aware, the only throttling Netflix has ever done has been in the form of providing lower-bitrate streams to pay-by-the-byte cellular customers, and they have never blamed the ISPs for this money-saving feature.

Re: Muh Bandwidth wuz STRANGLED!

[Dynedain]

Would those agreements still be made if streaming services, like Netflix, didn't exist? If so then it is a moot point.

Yes, that is how traffic is and always has been metered between networks.

How many other streaming/information services does the ISP have to house?

None. Netflix traffic constitutes much of the ISP's usage, so Netflix offered a way for the ISP to reduce their costs. Netflix received no direct benefit here other than improved customer satisfaction from better latency. ISPs setup similar arrangements with other companies all the time. This is how CDNs work.

Why is Netflix able to dictate the business of a different company?

They aren't dictating anything. How do you possibly come to that conclusion?

Besides, just because it is cost effective doesn't mean that an ISP has to do whatever Netflix demands.

You have a warped perspective. Netflix didn't demand anything, they volunteered a way for the ISP to cut costs. They receive no money from the consumer ISP and have no direct business with the consumer ISP. Netflix offered a way for the consumer ISPs to reduce their costs by aggregating and reducing the amount of Netflix traffic on their network. Some took them up on it. Comcast however decided to explicitly throttle Netflix traffic on their network instead, because online streaming is a threat to legacy cable TV. The reports were made public and there are countless articles about it if you do a few minutes of research instead of blindly spouting off whatever nonsense comes to your head.

let's not forget

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's not forget who originally made Pai one of the FCC Commissioners. That's right---Barack Obama. We're stuck with him until 2021, but Either party could extend his tenure until 2023.

Re:let's not forget

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets also not forget the entire story. Obama was required to nominate someone the republicans would accept due to the FCC commissioners having to have a 3:2 split.

Re:let's not forget

[Anonymous Coward]

Having to pick a republican translates, to you, as "pick this republican"?

Re:let's not forget

[Anonymous Coward]

He wasn't required to, he chose to. Obama was a Republican who ran as a Democrat and he wanted to do Republican things like cut social security and make the Bush tax cuts permanent. The only reason that social security didn't get cut was that the GOP's Freedom Caucus got greedy and wasn't willing to accept only 90% of what they wanted.

Likewise, Obama could have gotten at bare minimum a public option as part of his health care overhaul, it's just that he chose not to punish his fellow "Democrats" for refusing to sign off on it. And the next election the Democrats that they removed that for were voted out of office.

---said the whinniest little bitch of all

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you lost at least 1 of your man cards there.

Millennials will change things

[rsilvergun]

not because they're somehow special, but because they've been given almost nothing. Between student loan debt and the 20% lower pay than boomers they own nothing to speak of.

The right wing stay in power by exploiting people's natural conservative natures (e.g. the genuine fear of change). This works because people have something to lose and that lack a sense of entitlement. The Millennials have nothing to lose and they're at least a bit entitled (the media likes to portray them as entitled brats, this is more right wing propaganda, since it's sense of entitlement that makes people demand a better life, which the rich don't want to pay for).

There's other factors. Evangelical Religion is melting away, with 24% of Americans declaring "none" as their religion. Religion's another easy to exploit system for the right wing to use. Racism is yet another and is fading away, with people in the South openly challenging the phony civil war monuments (phony because they were erected to remind blacks to stay in their place, not to honor the fallen).

If there's anything that worries me it's the right wing Wallstreet Democrats. These folks were created by Bill Clinton and are basically economic right wingers who regularly sell out the working class. They're planing on using the GOP's reliance on rural racists against them as demographics change and the number of Hispanics increase. I don't think it's a good strategy, those Hispanics are likely to be right wing as anything, but since the Wallstreet Dems can't do real policy to solve real problems they're grasping at straws.

Re:Millennials will change things

[Anonymous Coward]

not because they're somehow special, but because they've been given almost nothing.

You overestimate what the Boomers were given.

Early Boomers were born under a post war economic boom, but that doesn't meant their parents just gave them everything for free. Nay, unless you're a 0.1%er like Donald Trump, Boomers weren't given a free lunch. Boomer parents often expected their kids to find a job and pay rent as soon as they are of age, and pay for their luxuries and entertainment themselves. Credit wasn't as easy to obtain back then either.

This is before considering the later Boomers, who instead of a post war economic boom, grew up in the 70s when the economy took a downturn, so their parents might not have the means to spoil them even if they wanted to.

The meme that "kids these days" were spoiled, had helicopter parents, didn't need to do chores, are given participation trophies, can put everything on (daddy's) credit card, etc. all came later. Even if none of those stereotypes are true, it still doesn't mean that older generations had it that much better

The Good Old days... simply weren't.

Between student loan debt and the 20% lower pay than boomers they own nothing to speak of.

Errr... having debt and low pay doesn't mean you don't or can't own things. It's a ridiculous assumption/assertion.

If anything, having more debt and less pay means Millenials would care more to lose what little they did manage to buy for themselves. A rich man can afford to throw away his sandwich after two bites. A poor man would fight you to pull that sandwich out from the dumpster.

The Millennials have nothing to lose and they're at least a bit entitled

No and no. Millenials do have something to lose: not just the few things they bought and would like to keep, but also an environment in which they can find work or start their own business so they can pay back their debts.

Millenials are also not entitled, since as you said that's just right wing propaganda. Millenials are quite selfless, much more accepting of the idea of the "Greater Good", embracing social justice causes. If anything it's the older folks who feel entitled to maintaining their old ways of life (while demanding less taxes but more welfare from government, somehow, being funded on the backs of millenials earning 20% less)

(the media likes to portray them as entitled brats, this is more right wing propaganda, since it's sense of entitlement that makes people demand a better life, which the rich don't want to pay for).

You're confusing ambition with entitlement. Ambition is what drives people to demand a better life, while knowing it's still up to you the individual to work for it. Entitlement is the expectation that the world magically owes you a better life without effort on your part.

Entitled people may like what the left sells because the left often does run on the appeal of giving people something for nothing (well, at the expense of other people), but as above Millennials are actually not entitled. Millenials want a better life, but they don't want a hand out. They want to be able to work hard and earn that better life for themselves, and that's what the right sells: an environment for them to do just that.

There's other factors. Evangelical Religion is melting away, with 24% of Americans declaring "none" as their religion. Religion's another easy to exploit system for the right wing to use. Racism is yet another and is fading away, with people in the South openly challenging the phony civil war monuments (phony because they were erected to remind blacks to stay in their place, not to honor the fallen).

The decrease in religion and racism hurts the left just as much as the right.

Decrease in religion comes with a rise in skepticism, and skeptics don't discriminate between left and right. Skeptics can just as easily rej

Re:Millennials will change things

[Anonymous Coward]

The decrease in religion and racism hurts the left just as much as the right.

This bullshit again. Saying the same falsehood a thousand times doesn't make it true

Re:Millennials will change things

[Anonymous Coward]

This bullshit again. Saying the same falsehood a thousand times doesn't make it true

Other way around, silly fellow AC. You can dismiss and deny it a thousand times, it doesn't make it false.

Again, Google "Feminists Love Islamists". If you bothered to look, you'll find plenty of people who mock feminists and SJWs just as much as they mock right wingers and religious whackjobs.

That religion is on the right while "godless commies" are on the left as bitter enemies is just propaganda from those who wish to divide the people into partisan hacks. Don't fall for it.

either way.. tool

[AndrewFlagg]

either way, most hi-tech CEO's have padded their business odds with or without the game Ajit is playing. i still believe he is a tool. they will all make money coming or going, that is the game plan. technology fee here for this going that way, and then more technology fees for going back the other way... its a government compliance game led by bureaucrats through and through, and we all know it, look at every city, county, state systems - forced legal compliance (ergo. look at all modes of insurance companies for goodness sake... insurance companies have so much power and so much money, probably more than banks do...) amen. i rest my case.

With less NN rules

[AHuxley]

The rule of community broadband can spread.
No longer will monopoly telcos get to use federal NN rules to keep out new innovative internet services.

Re: With less NN rules

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol, citation fucking needed. Because we didn't have competition before, during, or after the rules. The current selection of ISPs in America are currently enjoying a sweet monopoly with no end in sight.

What a creep

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of the snotty rich kids at a school I used to attend.
Money can buy a lot.

From Anecdotes to Imaginations

[Anonymous Coward]

When a government transitions the selection of valid measurements of the effectiveness of its policies from statistical to anecdotes over to imagined feel-good stories, it becomes a feel-good government for the people to feel good about themselves, but ceases being a government that is capable of acting on the benefit of the people.

Re: THERE ARE ALWAYS CONSEQUENCES NAZI FAGGOT KEN

[Anonymous Coward]

Knock it off, APK. We need more civility on Slashdot, and you're actively working against that.

Re: How could Ajit thank Congress?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not supposed to die from a NN repeal, Slashdot is. Every domain and website but Microsoft, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are supposed to die from a NN repeal.

The sky is definitely on its way down.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how anyone managed to survive back when one's network connection ran at a 300-1200 baud rate and was specifically a connection to service being accessed. Must have been a lot of suicides back then.

Pretty sure also now that smoke signals and mail ships is, in fact, nothing but a collection of myths and fanciful tales used to exacerbate the trauma when little children experience video game console crashes.

Re: The sky is definitely on its way down.

[Anonymous Coward]

The repubtard fallacy. Everything was so good back then, let's make everything now like it was back then. MAGA.

I call it the MAGA repubtard fallacy.

Such is life

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's not what you know, it's who you know." and Mr Pai knows a lot of very unpleasant, sleazy people who can make his nasty little dreams come true and the dreams of his friends. A lot of rich people in power are about to become a lot richer and a bit more powerful.

Re:Net Neutrality dies...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just goes to show what kind of spoon fed, totally uncritical thought process you have. I think you have spammed your one sided crap enough already.

Some random speed test site does not know the actual speeds to everywhere else. Why don't you start actually thinking?

Ha!

[hvidstue]

In northern Europe we enjoy both net neutrality and very high internet speeds. USA is still lagging far behind the modern world :D It is really comically, when you think about it: A large super power, but can't even get its act together at make proper interned speed :D

Re:Ha!

[_Sharp'r_]

The flaw in your comment is that it treats the entirety of the USA as one entity when it comes to internet speeds.

I have multiple gigabit fiber providers available to me and pay $70/month for a low latency symmetrical gigabit link to my suburban house at the edge of the city. Other people in some rural areas only have DSL or satellite Internet. Other people in cities are more like me, but there are a few cities where legal restrictions cause some people to be stuck virtually at dial-up.

Lots of different States, different cities, different legal rules and population density/distances over time equal different outcomes. I don't know for sure as I don't live there, but I'd guess Nervei, Norway doesn't have as good of Internet access as I do in the USA, despite being in "Northern Europe".

Re: Ha!

[Anonymous Coward]

And you'd be wrong.

http://www.allisps.com/en/offers/NORWAY

It seems Norway is quite progressives and offers a lot of options. From fiber all the way to Sat and dialup. Starting at $2 a month. I don't see any competition like that in America. Nowhere.

Re: Ha!

[_Sharp'r_]

That's a list of ISPs which provide service in some part of Norway. It doesn't say anything at all about the specific availability in the locale of Nervei, Norway.

a few states could try out municipal broadband

[Anonymous Coward]

For the short term, I'm glad that most states have banned municipal broadband, because the average local govt is not technical savvy, and prone to screw such things up. Tech in public schools comes to mind. In the long term, I would like there to be multiple attempts in a few states, especially in cities, with a tech savvy population, to see if your average local govts have the sophistication to make muni broadbrand work in practice. It would be nice for each attempt to recruit experts from different places. One place from a foreign muni broadband network for example.

That Google gave up on muni broadband after one city is a bad sign. Google is a rich, technically sophisticated company.

Re:a few states could try out municipal broadband

[Anonymous Coward]

if lots of communities were providing service than an industry would build around it that supplies ready built solutions. Also public utilities tend to be more of the public/private entity type.

Google failed because the problem is political not technical. Who's better to work through political problems than government ready and willing to serve its people?

Seriously America, why ?????

[Anonymous Coward]

... is there a hinduchimp at the top levels of your civil service ??

Wtf ???

No he didn't

[cascadingstylesheet]

CC Chairman Ajit Pai today thanked Congress for preventing the U.S. government from enforcing net neutrality rules.

No he didn't. That's a ludicrous way of putting it.

Congress didn't "prevent the U.S. government from enforcing net neutrality rules".

Congress was under no obligation to pass a law implementing some past president's policy preferences.

he's a douche

[Anonymous Coward]

that asshole needs to get fed to a woodchipper...
=P

free and open.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ajit's mouth for Congress members.

"Criminal Thanks Other Criminals For Help"

[RonVNX]

Fixed that headline for ya.

Re:Net Neutrality dies...

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn, I hope you had karma to burn. The Progressives have lots of mod points today.

Yup, Pai is a piece of shit

[Anonymous Coward]

Very simple. He doesn't work for the people.

Natural Monopolies

[sjbe]

The reason we have cable monopolies is because local governments awarded monopoly service contracts.

That's part of the reason but only a part. A bigger reason is simply that it is economically inefficient for networks to be small - literally network effects. Last mile ISPs are a classic example of a natural monopoly.

You identified part of the problem which is the last mile monopoly/oligopoly. This could be ameliorated by prohibiting companies that deal in content from also owning the lines (or towers) to deliver that content. Then there is minimal conflict of interest and no real reason to charge Netflix more (or less) than anyone else. They should either be in the content delivery business or the content creation business but not both.

tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Ajit Pai
is a tool..
msmash is a tool /. has also become a tool, thanks guys

Re:Net Neutrality dies...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am as liberal as anyone else for sure, and but I admit that things are better now that net nutrality is gone! I used to have terrible internet speed, but Comcast now announced much faster speeds and it has been amazing! Even though I was unhappy about the other things, I feel that overall Trump has been amazing for our country and has put us back on a great track to integrity and amazing technology advsncement!

Re: Thanks for the flamebait stories

[Anonymous Coward]

Creimer advertising dildos now? What are you a product tester?

Re: Faster speeds

[Anonymous Coward]

". But new data from M-Lab, a research partnership between Google, Princeton and groups like the Open Technology Institute paint a very different picture about whatâ(TM)s been happening on a global scale."

1. Sponsored by google. - all lies
2. Global scale - this tells us nothing about America's internet speeds. It's talking about GLOBAL speeds.

Nice try shill.

Re: Faster speeds

[Anonymous Coward]

Also this..

News was particularly good for the United States, which moved up from the 21st-fastest country in 2017 to the 20th-fastest country in 2018.

So in one year we went from 21st place to 20th. Yayyyyy? I guess? I thought this was America where we require the best. I guess not anymore. America now settles for 20th place. The country that created the fucking internet is 20th for speed. That's fucking sad.

But hey, we don't need NN, corporations will always do the right thing. /s

Re: Net Neutrality dies...

[Anonymous Coward]

MAGA.

On a side note, my dick keeps itching. Anyone know why? On New Years I woke up next to trumps daughter and wife. With a blistering hang over. Now my cock won't stop itching.

Re: Thanks for the flamebait stories

[Anonymous Coward]

That is a dildo, phag.

Found the libtard

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the headline MOST americans support, if you ask them about big goverment and regulation:

"Hero thanks fellow patriots and heroes for their help."