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House Democrats Refuse To Weaken Net Neutrality Bill, Defeat GOP Amendments (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday rejected Republican attempts to weaken a bill that would restore net neutrality rules.
The House Commerce Committee yesterday approved the "Save the Internet Act" in a 30-22 party-line vote, potentially setting up a vote of the full House next week. The bill is short and simple -- it would fully reinstate the rules implemented by the Federal Communications Commission under then-Chairman Tom Wheeler in 2015, reversing the repeal led by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in 2017.
Commerce Committee Republicans repeatedly introduced amendments that would weaken the bill but were consistently rebuffed by the committee's Democratic majority. "The Democrats beat back more than a dozen attempts from Republicans to gut the bill with amendments throughout the bill's markup that lasted 9.5 hours," The Hill reported yesterday. Republican amendments would have weakened the bill by doing the following: Exempt all 5G wireless services from net neutrality rules; Exempt all multi-gigabit broadband services from net neutrality rules; Exempt from net neutrality rules any ISP that builds broadband service in any part of the U.S. that doesn't yet have download speeds of at least 25Mbps and upload speeds of at least 3Mbps; Exempt from net neutrality rules any ISP that gets universal service funding from the FCC's Rural Health Care Program; Exempt ISPs that serve 250,000 or fewer subscribers from certain transparency rules that require public disclosure of network management practices; and Prevent the FCC from limiting the types of zero-rating (i.e., data cap exemptions) that ISPs can deploy. An additional Republican amendment "would have imposed net neutrality rules but declared that broadband is an information service, [preventing] the FCC from imposing any other type of common-carrier regulations on ISPs," reports Ars Technica. "The committee did approve a Democratic amendment to exempt ISPs with 100,000 or fewer subscribers from the transparency rules, but only for one year."
Commerce Committee Republicans repeatedly introduced amendments that would weaken the bill but were consistently rebuffed by the committee's Democratic majority. "The Democrats beat back more than a dozen attempts from Republicans to gut the bill with amendments throughout the bill's markup that lasted 9.5 hours," The Hill reported yesterday. Republican amendments would have weakened the bill by doing the following: Exempt all 5G wireless services from net neutrality rules; Exempt all multi-gigabit broadband services from net neutrality rules; Exempt from net neutrality rules any ISP that builds broadband service in any part of the U.S. that doesn't yet have download speeds of at least 25Mbps and upload speeds of at least 3Mbps; Exempt from net neutrality rules any ISP that gets universal service funding from the FCC's Rural Health Care Program; Exempt ISPs that serve 250,000 or fewer subscribers from certain transparency rules that require public disclosure of network management practices; and Prevent the FCC from limiting the types of zero-rating (i.e., data cap exemptions) that ISPs can deploy. An additional Republican amendment "would have imposed net neutrality rules but declared that broadband is an information service, [preventing] the FCC from imposing any other type of common-carrier regulations on ISPs," reports Ars Technica. "The committee did approve a Democratic amendment to exempt ISPs with 100,000 or fewer subscribers from the transparency rules, but only for one year."
Nice to see the Democrats showing some balls. But it is pointless grandstanding at this point, as it will never get to Trumpy's desk, let alone him signing it.
First law of people: People are generally stupid.
The bills busting local and state rules that prohibit new entrants into markets, utilities from entering into that market, muni, etc.? Also, why stop here? Why should monopolies like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube not be required to be common carriers? It's much easier in terms of capital to build new ISP than one of those.
That's not how you boil a frog...
Let me preface this post with: Shut the fuck up ivan.
The difference between you and literally every slashdot poster 10 years ago is obvious.
"stop regulating business"
Regulating business has been central to every society with laws since 1776 bce with hammaburi's first 300 or so laws. ^^^ . This is the sort of statement I expect from the typically well educated posters who hang out on Slashdot.
You sound like this:
Durrr govanment isn't supporsed to be messing with business. Y don't they do imporannt work like bring back coal jerbs
Which is exactly the sort of retarded argument I'd expect from the sort of poor unwashed prole that would have zero interest coming here unless you paid him.
Bad Congress -- I think government control of internet content and data transfer will be a net loss for society.
Good Congress -- if it's going to be done, under the American system, it ought to be passed as a bill in Congress, not decreed by a President or a President's appointee.
Fascinating!
Why don't you talk to us about the technical ramifications and issues surrounding net neutrality?
Since you're totally a Slashdot regular with an interest in news for nerds.
Bro, I first started reading /. on a 9600 modem before the JonKatz days, back when people actually read long blocks of text on the Internet because you'd grow old waiting for any kind of visual media or virtual machine applet to d/l and render. There were several years when almost all of my non-fap computer time was spent on Slashdot and the various other "cyberspace" ghettos from the Slash diaspora - K5, MeFi, and Adequacy. I wish someone had paid me for all the time I've spent here. I'd have a nice down payment on a good house by now. Unfortunately, instead all I have to show for it is this basement desk covered in hot grits I spilled while trying to hang a new Natalie Portman poster on the wall. Older one had gotten splotchy.
But you stay fr0sty now...
Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
If the FCC is the government's form of regulating communications services in the United States how can they offer CAF funding to promote faster internet speeds but at same time the FCC claims it can't regulate it?
Well, one gives the ISPs money, so it is good. One prevents the ISPs from gouging others for money, so it is bad.
Intellectual consistency is not a requirement to run a business.
If broadband is considered an "information service" which now prevents the FCC from imposing any regulations on ISP's, why does the US government give $$$$ away to broadband carriers to offer higher speeds such as the Connect America Fund (CAF) ? If the FCC is the government's form of regulating communications services in the United States how can they offer CAF funding to promote faster internet speeds but at same time the FCC claims it can't regulate it?
The FCC maintains multiple contradictory definitions of the same terms used interchangeably to get away with whatever they please.
For example according to the FCC broadband Internet counts is 200kbit/s in either direction AND at least 25/3 mbit/s. To a normal person it's plainly obvious both definitions can't concurrently be true but hey if your the FCC anything goes.
The point is to get the GOP on record supporting something that will likely raise your cable bill (or phone bill if you're on DSL). That's an issue that can resonate with voters. From there it becomes election fodder to win seats and push the presidency over the edge.
The democratic bill allows FCC to impose regressive USF taxes on Internet access. They didn't have to do that. The democrats could have done a clean NN bill. They elected not to.
A member of congress from my own state said on her blog today that should would not vote for this bill because of this above all - the Internet should not be taxed.
I do not belong to the church of the lowercase 'i'
they have a very specific agenda, to wit:
1. Cut taxes on their donors.
2. Cut regulations, which sounds good in theory, until you remember 2008 and how cutting regulations got us there. Or safety regs on mines. Or live in a place like Flint, Mi, or any one of the thousands of regulations that help you personally that folks like to forget about or pretend won't be cut.
3. End Social Security & Medicare. It's at the point where they'll have to raise the cap on taxable income to pay for it, and that would mean cutting into their donor's profits, again.
4. Give the Evangelicals anything they want so long as it doesn't inconvenience their donors. Overturning Roe v Wade, allowing discrimination against the folks evangelicals don't like and yes, that's up to and including theocracy. Look at Saudi Arabia and how the ruling class lives large and without moral constraints while the working class follows the Koran to the letter. Think that but with King James.
5. More war, more empire building.
6. And while all this is going on take as much money for themselves as they can
There are others, and yes you'll find right wing Dems like Joe Biden and Beto O'Rouke going along with most if not all of the above (both Biden & Beto have got behind a program to end Social Security and replace it with a means tested welfare program, and Chuck Schumer & Pelosi have been selling us out to their donors for years. ).
It's always the same damn thing though. Our ruling class is clawing back the ground they lost post WWII. What I find so frustrating is how obvious they are about it and how nobody seems to give a damn. Especially if they've got theirs (fuck me).
But getting back to my point, the GOP is _not_ just being contrarian. They have a very specific agenda, long term and well financed. The sooner we figure out that their agenda isn't compatible with our continued well being the sooner we can do something about it.
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right after Pai was in and signaled he would kill NN my ISP started metering my bandwidth. They hadn't done that for a few decades (literally, I've had high speed cable since the 90s when it was only $40/mo. I got it because it was literally cheaper than dial up and a second line). That wasn't a co-iniki-dink. Pai emboldened them.
They're also busy fucking with Netflix. The only reason they haven't started charging a Netflix tax is they're worried if they do it too soon folks will rebel and elect a Democrat in 2020. The mass of voters respond consistently to very, very little, but there's one thing that _always_ moves them: Price increases. 60-80% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck (depending on if you consider $1000 bucks in the bank as "not paycheck-to-paycheck") so it's no damn surprise. Hell, I'll say this, I know folk who'll admit to living paycheck-to-paycheck. Lots of them. It's so pervasive that it's not a stigma anymore. We're not "temporarily inconvenienced millionaires" anymore. We know which side our bread's buttered on and it's the wrong side.
Raise the cost of internet & NetFlix and make sure every damn body knows Trump & Pai were responsible and you'll have a revolt at the polls. Metering you can get away with because it's tough for the rank and file to get their heads around. But make no mistake, the Netflix tax is coming and much, much worse.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/