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New Net Neutrality Bill Headed To Congress (theverge.com)
Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) said today he would "soon" introduce a bill to permanently reinstate the net neutrality rules that were repealed by the Federal Communications Commission, led by chairman Ajit Pai, in 2017. From a report: Markey's announcement comes as a federal court is set to hear oral arguments over the FCC's repeal of net neutrality regulations in 2017. Markey, who is a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, has previously introduced a bill that would permanently reinstate net neutrality as a member of the House of Representatives, although the measure ultimately failed.
It's unclear when the bill would be formally introduced, but Markey said it was imminent. "We will soon lay down a legislative marker in the Senate in support of net neutrality to show the American people that we are on their side in overwhelming supporting a free and open internet." Further reading: Net Neutrality Repeal at Stake as Key Court Case Starts: Oral arguments are set to begin Friday in the most prominent lawsuit challenging the federal government's repeal of broadband access rules known as net neutrality. The Federal Communications Commission approved the rules in 2015 to ensure internet users equal and open access to all websites and services. The commission, under new leadership, rolled the rules back in 2017. The plaintiffs in the suit to be argued Friday, led by the internet company Mozilla and supported by 22 state attorneys general, say the commission lacked a sound legal reason for scrapping the regulations. The government is expected to argue that the rules were repealed because of the burden they imposed on broadband providers like Verizon and Comcast.
It's unclear when the bill would be formally introduced, but Markey said it was imminent. "We will soon lay down a legislative marker in the Senate in support of net neutrality to show the American people that we are on their side in overwhelming supporting a free and open internet." Further reading: Net Neutrality Repeal at Stake as Key Court Case Starts: Oral arguments are set to begin Friday in the most prominent lawsuit challenging the federal government's repeal of broadband access rules known as net neutrality. The Federal Communications Commission approved the rules in 2015 to ensure internet users equal and open access to all websites and services. The commission, under new leadership, rolled the rules back in 2017. The plaintiffs in the suit to be argued Friday, led by the internet company Mozilla and supported by 22 state attorneys general, say the commission lacked a sound legal reason for scrapping the regulations. The government is expected to argue that the rules were repealed because of the burden they imposed on broadband providers like Verizon and Comcast.
Would it solve the problem of Comcast throttling Netflix unless Netflix paid their extortion fee? Yes it would. But that problem is actually a just a symptom of a greater problem.
The real problem is that there's next to no competition among ISPs. If there were competition and Comcast throttled Netflix as a ploy to extort money from Netflix, Comcast customers who watched Netflix would simply cancel and sign up with a competing ISP. Comcast would be slitting their own throats with such a bone-headed move. We wouldn't need Net Neutrality. The only reason they have the gall to throttle Netflix, the only reason Net Neutrality helps, is because they have a monopoly or near-monopoly in most areas. They know their customers cannot flee to a different ISP, so they're free to do things which intentionally degrades the quality of the service their customers receive.
Why do Comcast, Verizon, et al have near-monopolies? Because the local goverments gave it to them. Often in exchange for service guarantees (e.g. to cover low-income areas) or financial kickbacks. The governments like it because it gives them control over the telecoms (who happily make campaign donations to retain their monopoly). The telecoms like it because the government gives them a monopoly so they can over-charge their customers (more than enough to offset the cost of they campaign contributions they have to make to maintain this arrangement). That is the real problem that needs to be fixed. Not only does it cause the problems Net Neutrality aims to fix, it causes a host of other problems like excessively high prices, excessively low data caps, poor repair service times, incentive money being spent on executive bonuses instead of improving the network, etc.
Net Neutrality is the politicians' way to have their cake and eat it too. They can pretend to be on the customers' side by striking a blow against the big, bad cable monopolies. But since the monopolies are government-granted, they retain control over those monopolies so the telecom companies continue to give campaign contributions to them. It just cements in place this terrible monopoly ISP system we have in place, by taking one of the biggest customer complaints off the table.
If you want to fix this, just rescind the government-granted monopolies. You don't even need national legislation to do this. Just elect people to your city or county government in favor of allowing multiple cable companies to compete in your area. Then it can't be countered just because some bozo gets appointed head of the FCC.
This is a useless. Ask 10 people what NN is and you will get 10 answers. If the government simply puts back the NN rules as before, then it's broken. This is simply a political ploy. Here is the scenario:
Dems bring bill to reinstate (makes sound good) NN rules. Reps don't vote for it, and it goes no where (Reps say same reasons for broken NN rule that were there in the first place) Dems rave about how Reps are in it for the big corporations (gee where does all of the money from both of them come from) and they don't want equality. People this is this true because no one has any idea what NN is and if something is good for them or not. Next, Reps will bring out their own. Dems will say it's not good enough and vote it down. And around we go.
Nothing gets done. By the way, did anyone actually check with some networking experts on these rules they want to implement. With how the original rules were written, that would be no. But if they did, they paid a pretty penny for it.
In a scenario where power is split, both parties love to go to town with heavy rhetoric and the bills to back it up, safe in the knowledge that the other party will block it and take the blame. They get to largely throw any semblance of nuance out the window on divisive issues and *appear* to be ready to go all in to get that bill passed. Like a dog chasing a car being very loud.
Then when the dog catches the car, suddenly things are different. When one of the parties control the legislature and executive branch all that rhetoric can finally go. Well, actually they are not really a fan of those seemingly simplistic perspectives, and suddenly things grind to a halt. We want socialized medicine say the democrats that know they will be vetoed. They get power in congress and the executive branch, things get watered down and Obamacare happens. On the flipside, Republicans with a president that will absolutely veto anything that would threaten obamacare: 'we have passed many bills that would dismantle obamacare'. Republicans win congress and the presidency, 'oh... well, we don't *really* want to repeal it....'
It's a large cause of the seesaw. The tough reality is that some nuanced approach is generally best but the voters are bored by that so they vote for the energized oversimplistic view that sounds straightforwarde enough.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.