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Bill That Would Restore Net Neutrality Moves Forward Despite Telecom's Best Efforts To Kill It (vice.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Last month, Democrats introduced a simple three page bill that would do one thing: restore FCC net neutrality rules and the agency's authority over ISPs, both stripped away by a hugely-controversial decision by the agency in late 2017. Tuesday morning, the Save the Internet Act passed through a key House committee vote and markup session -- despite some last-minute efforts by big telecom to weaken the bill.

"Net neutrality is coming back with a vengeance," said Evan Greer, deputy director of consumer group Fight for the Future said in a statement. "Politicians are slowly learning that they can't get away with shilling for big telecom anymore," Greer said. "We're harnessing the power of the Internet to save it, and any lawmaker who stands in our way will soon face the wrath of their constituents, who overwhelmingly want lawmakers to restore these basic protections." Greer told Motherboard that several last minute amendments were introduced by lawmakers during the markup period in an attempt to water down the bill, but all were pulled in the wake of widespread public interest in the hearing. "It seems like the GOP retreated a bit given after the huge swell of public support," said Greer, who told Motherboard that 300,000 people watched the organization's livestream of the markup process. That attention "really emboldened the Democrats and shored up the ones that were wobbling," Greer said.

8 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by whoever57 · · Score: 4, Informative

    If we are going to talk about Netflix, they already offer (or used to offer) your proposed solution. Many ISPs generally refused to accept these boxes because it undercut their arguments about getting Netflix to pay them.

    https://openconnect.netflix.co...

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  2. Re:Net neutrality and colocation by sjames · · Score: 4, Informative

    Both Netflix AND the ISP save tons of upstream bandwidth.

    Or, without neutrality, ISP throttles the hell out of Netflix and zero rates CrapeeStreaming (a wholly owned subsidiary) and gives their customers the middle finger suggesting they go back to dial-up if they don't like it.

  3. democracy by Sooner+Boomer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What this means is that if you want NN, you have to vote for a Democrat, or at least an Independent. And they have to win both chambers and probably the presidency to.

    Or, you could, you know, engage your representative and senator (R/D/wutevr), and express your point of view in a clear, reasoned manner. Believe it or not, they do listen to your calls and read your letters/emails (at least someone on their staff does. There is a populist movement on both sides of the aisle and the incumbents better pay attention to it, or they will be looking for a new job.

    --
    Chaos maximizes locally around me.
  4. Re:Nobody IRL cares about NN by WaffleMonster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    NN isn't about the consumer, it's about who pays.

    This is an oxymoron. The consumer ultimately is footing the bill for everything one way or another.

  5. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Welcome back to your copper insulated wireline that 100% NN ready and federally approved.

    Welcome back to your one federal NN approved monopoly telco.

    No more new competition. No new community broadband. No network innovation allowed.

    Federal rules and laws protecting monopoly networks all the way down to the modem.

    Nothing new for your gated community. Nothing better for your gentrified neighborhood.

    Want community broadband? The exisiting NN approved network is the only network allowed.

    Federal laws and rules slowing your internet since 2019?

    Restoring slow gov approved networks all over the USA. No more new network freedom.

    Welcome back to your copper insulated wireline that 100% NN ready and federally approved.
    Welcome back to your one federal NN approved monopoly telco.
    No more new competition. No new community broadband. No network innovation allowed.
    Federal rules and laws protecting monopoly networks all the way down to the modem.

    You really don't have the first clue about what the Net Neutrality rules did and did not do prior to December 14, 2017, do you? All this new bill does is reverse the Ajit Pai FCC fuckery from December, 2017 and sets it back to the way it was before that. Do you recall the Internet being slow before 2017? Do you really believe there was no network innovation before December 2017?

    Federal laws and rules slowing your internet since 2019?

    You really are a stupid sonofabitch, you know that?

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  6. Re:Nobody IRL cares about NN by Freischutz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nobody in real life cares about what people call Net Neutrality.

    In reality, NN is about corporations trying to force other corporations to pay for infrastructure and access. Everything else is just a sideshow, and it's pathetic how so-called geeks have gotten suckered into taking sides in this fight.

    NN isn't about the consumer, it's about who pays.

    Believe you me, people in real life care about the inflated bill for crappy internet service from their local telecommunications monopoly and they are pissed off about the crappy service so they care about what people call Net Neutrality even if they might call the lack of it price gouging and crappy service.

  7. Re:Restore NN and enjoy the gov approved network by shilly · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The market solution to insufficient competition is, in theory, more competition. When there's not enough competition, we have a market failure, and regulators should step in, in this case with Net Neutrality.

  8. Re:Nobody IRL cares about NN by vadim_t · · Score: 4, Insightful

    NN is about removing extortion.

    Netflix pays their ISP for their connection, I pay mine for mine. That's all there has to be. There's no reason for my ISP to care about Netflix, because whatever are the costs of my usage of Netflix should be covered by the money I pay.