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Colorado's 'Open Internet' Bill Would Punish Internet-Providing Violators By Taking Their Grant Money Away (coloradosun.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Colorado Sun: Now that Democrats are in charge, Colorado's second attempt at its own version of a net neutrality law passed the General Assembly and now heads to Gov. Jared Polis for his certain signature. Keeping internet speeds consistent regardless of whether a customer is streaming video from Comcast or Netflix wasn't the only intent of the Senate Bill 78. The bill also makes internet service providers pay back state grants to build broadband infrastructure if those companies use paid prioritization to favor some internet traffic over others, or slow down speeds for some users.
The Colorado law is similar to the former federal one in that it would prohibit ISPs from prioritizing certain content. It would also force violating ISPs that benefited from state broadband grants to refund all money received in the previous 24 months. After the governor signs the bill into law, Colorado's attorney general would by Oct. 1 create guidelines on how consumers can file complaints about net neutrality violations. "What I was really looking for in this year's bill was the appropriate nexus of action. A lot of the bills we saw getting in trouble in other states, or bills that were facing a lot of opposition, were more about sending a message of net neutrality instead of looking for a fulcrum point for state action," said Sen. Kerry Donovan, a Democrat from Vail who sponsored last year's bill and wrote this year's bill. "This bill says that if you're going to ask to be funded by the people in Colorado directly out of their paycheck then you need to adhere to these principles."
The Colorado law is similar to the former federal one in that it would prohibit ISPs from prioritizing certain content. It would also force violating ISPs that benefited from state broadband grants to refund all money received in the previous 24 months. After the governor signs the bill into law, Colorado's attorney general would by Oct. 1 create guidelines on how consumers can file complaints about net neutrality violations. "What I was really looking for in this year's bill was the appropriate nexus of action. A lot of the bills we saw getting in trouble in other states, or bills that were facing a lot of opposition, were more about sending a message of net neutrality instead of looking for a fulcrum point for state action," said Sen. Kerry Donovan, a Democrat from Vail who sponsored last year's bill and wrote this year's bill. "This bill says that if you're going to ask to be funded by the people in Colorado directly out of their paycheck then you need to adhere to these principles."
Just use the money to build state-owned infrastructure (similar to highways) and lease fibers and/or wavelengths to any ISP that wants them.
Government money to corporations must be free and easy so they can use it best, unlike welfare to the poor which must be heavily restricted!
Morpheus: I was a prototype for Echelon IV. My instructions are to amuse visitors with information about themselves.
JC: I don't see anything amusing about spying on people.
Morpheus: Human beings feel pleasure when they are watched. I have recorded their smiles as I tell them who they are.
JC: Some people just don't understand the dangers of indiscriminate surveillance.
Morpheus: The need to be observed and understood was once satisfied by God. Now we can implement the same functionality with data-mining algorithms.
JC: Electronic surveillance hardly inspires reverence. Perhaps fear and obedience, but not reverence.
Morpheus:God and the gods were apparitions of observation, judgement and punishment. Other sentiments towards them were secondary.
JC: No one will ever worship a software entity peering at them through a camera.
Morpheus: The human organism always worships. First, it was the gods, then it was fame (the observation and judgement of others), next it will be self-aware systems you have built to realize truly omnipresent observation and judgment.
JC: You underestimate humankind's love of freedom.
Morpheus: The individual desires judgment. Without that desire, the cohesion of groups is impossible, and so is civilization.
Why are for-profit companies being funded by taxes?
Non-technical people should not be part of this rule making. QoS is a critical part of modern IP networks. You have to give higher priority to time sensitive data (like streaming video and voice) or it just doesnâ(TM)t work. Give it too high of a share, and nothing else gets through. I get not playing favorites between YouTube and Netflix, but you have to balance Netflix traffic vs. say articles from slashdot. Imagine if you had no rules for highways: you get downtown Mumbai or Hanoi. People walking everywhere, no one getting out of the way for fire trucks, bicycles going every which way. Etc. Everything slows down or just breaks. Thatâ(TM)s why we have sidewalks, bike lanes, HOV lanes, make way for emergency vehicles, and have highways and side streets.
I heartily second that
Only existing networks can keep internet speeds consistent?
What would big gov see as slowing down speeds for some users?
Is that an old network with way, way too many users always slow? An active new attempt to slow down speeds for "some" users?
Your ISP is now going to have to make you pay for their negotiations with big gov over day to day network conditions.
Who is going to invest if big gov wants to see how "some" users are doing?
Can an ISP prove "some" users are getting the same speeds as all users but their wireline is really, really old?
Will the ISP have to send it reports as to why "some" users are getting not the same speeds?
How many people will an ISP have to pay to report network conditions to big gov?
Thats a new service so your ISP can report on the existing network conditions to big gov.
Gov approved ISP teasing big gov just how slow your service is year after year. But the network is always NN in its slowness for all users.
No gated community is sneaking in network speed by paying more. No gentrification and getting in a great new ISP.
No community broadband as only a few selected and regulated ISP can prove to big gov they are full NN ready.
No innovation. No new competition. Welcome back to gov regulated NN ready wireline.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
The system is designed to extract the maximum value and cause the maximum amount of pain.
When the goddam federal government is a fucking loony bin, the states step up and say, "Hold my beer."
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Trump may as well be trump because if he isn't then it doesn't really matter
You think a customer on TMobile will be able to subscribe to Sling? Hell no! They're going to block every other streaming video service so you will take their Level3 or nothing.
That's not what T-Mobile has in place. The "Binge On" feature of T-Mobile plans doesn't count video against subscribers' cap so long as it's 1.5 Mbps or lower. (The vast majority of 480p video using AVC or VP8 is lower than that.) Binge On is open to any video provider that's willing to join. And I see no reason for this to end any time soon, even with the Sprint merger, as it'd break the "we're not AT&T" draw of the T-Mobile brand.
hell...AT&T is already walking down the path of making DirecTV an exclusive product that will require their network. Sure, that's a few years down the road...but they've effectively launched the very last satellite. Once the current fleet is dead...they'll be streaming only.
Some rural customers have satellite television from DirecTV because they live outside the service footprint of AT&T's high-volume Internet and IPTV service. Should DirecTV stop offering satellite television, that'll just leave Dish with a bunch of new customers.
"Blocking *lawful* internet content, applications, services, or nonharmful devices unless such blocking is conducted in a manner consistent with reasonable network management practices"
"Regulating network traffic by throttling bandwidth or otherwise impairing or degrading *lawful* internet traffic on the basis of internet content"
Emphasis mine. How are they going to tell what constitutes lawful or unlawful content? I guess they'll just have to snoop on everything you do, log it and report back to the authorities. It gives ISPs implicit authority to track, literally, everything you do. It may be interpreted as a requirement.
How about this: No payment for preferential treatment of bandwidth. Period.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
The sentiment that ex post facto laws are against natural right is so strong in the United States, that few, if any, of the State constitutions have failed to proscribe them. The federal constitution indeed interdicts them in criminal cases only; but they are equally unjust in civil as in criminal cases, and the omission of a caution which would have been right, does not justify the doing what is wrong. Nor ought it to be presumed that the legislature meant to use a phrase in an unjustifiable sense, if by rules of construction it can be ever strained to what is just. â
â" Thomas Jefferson , Letter to Isaac McPherson, August 13, 181
Progress!
Bill got caught lying 12-25 times repeatedly stating "Blood plasma is sterile" and then later that "The Chinese Govt does not directly censor Chinese citizens" and other absolute bullshit head-in-ass retard-level lies. You're not trustworthy.
You are not a source of information that anyone should or even could trust, knowing your dishonest history. Sorry. That's what accountability means when you get caught lying repeatedly, over and over, even after directly corrected.
You're a liar, Bill. I give it 1 in 10 you actually have a daughter you dishonest cunt.
Hell, even middle class people can't afford housing. I'm making $85k and can't afford to buy a house that I could have easily afforded 5 years ago making $35k. Unless I want to commute 2 hours each way, or live in the ghetto, my options are to pay more for rent than it would cost for a mortgage on a $250k house, or move out of state.
Which is becoming very appealing, since all the antivax Liberals in Boulder keep spreading Measles everywhere while doing everything they can to raise taxes.
Taxpayers shouldn't fund broadband, but rather companies shouldn't have been handed the funds nor monopolies/duopolies in the first place to roll out these networks. I support net neutrality because it's the only option on the table to solve the problem. It's a terrible solution though. It would be better to see a solution that increased competition in the market place. I'm generally against taxes, but given the unfair advantage that entrenched cable and communications companies received it would seem acceptable to temporarily tax (maybe 30-40 years) the entrenched monopolies to further the development of a truly free market. Unfortunately it's often hard to imagine the side-effects of governmental actions and we might see more harm from any action than positive change. The rights of way also need to be opened up to competition. The barriers to entry should be lowered and not be super expensive as they are now. That does mean eliminating the taxes on internet services, reducing the costs of rolling out new lines (licensing/fees to access polls/rights of way/etc and making it possible for all parties to move lines, etc).
Having shitty internet to own the libs. Brilliant strategy, you knob.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This is ex post facto law, unconstitutional and against the most fundamental principles of justice.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
on both sides need to focus on pet political issues, instead of shelving them for a few years and using their collective powers to shine the eye and swing the fist of government on its most pervasive abusers.
The AT&T situation came about partially from forgetting why AT&T had been broken up in the first place and partly by continuing to give them money knowing they weren't going to roll it out. They could have cut them off at a billion dollars instead of kept paying for instance, but no one was willing to say they had been wrong to support the funding in the first place, or figure out a rational plan for an alternative course of action to improve broadband all over the country.
The same issues happened with outsourcing and losing American industry. Each side blames the other when in reality they have both colluded because globalism benefits them with profits and reduced oversight.
My point is: Americans need to collectively wake up and bring our government to heel. Take the pet issues and say 'Don't bring up my issue for the next X years to try and push it your way and I won't bring it up either, so we can solve the real bipartisan issues affecting America.' Then HOLD TO IT. Do this and America can clean up its house, before returning to our usual level of bickering over things that in the big picture of economic life in America don't matter and won't help things improve.
Laws aren't worth the paper they're written on unless they are enforced in a method that actually has a punishing effect on the violator.
Too many corporate regulations have fines so low the companies will happily ignore them and then write off the fines as a "cost of doing business".
Where I work, we are eligible for a 50% discount from the state for internet services because we're a non-profit.
ComCast's pitch to me was they will double the up-to bandwidth and charge us the regular price, thus giving us our 50%.
That costs us the same, double's ComCast's income (read more than doubles profit). How slimey is that?
The city of Fort Collins is rolling out its own fiber network as a utility. Something like $50 a month for symmetrical gigabit.
Nothing in the article prevents ISPs, who typically use throttling as a means of cost control, from having to charge the consumer MORE for their service. If the average colorado resident is paying $65/mo for 100mbps service; my prediction is that within two years of this legislation passing, they will be paying at least $120/mo for the same service and you will have fewer options. The same shit happened when they started forcing insurances to cover stuff. First rates went up, and then companies started pulling out. I predict both will happen. You’ll get exactly what you regulated, a wide open faucet. The ones that stick around will charge the shit out of you and it will probably get maintained poorly and suffer packet loss. This is what happens when people think they can force a company to pay for shit. Remember the TRS fund? The Universal Services fund? Subscriber line charges? We sure made the telcos pay for all that shit disnt we? We sure showed them. Seen your bill lately? The taxes, fees, and regulatory costs exceed the service portion.
Don't worry, there's going to be a reset in Colorado. The rate of building is manic; that's a bad sign, like tulip prices were a bad sign, not just because the dwellings are forward collateral for the loans. Go back to 2007. When people begin defaulting on mortgages at a higher rate than they do on auto loans it's Katy bar the door. Legal pot isn't going to stop that shit.
That’s a rather strange move by the government. On the other hand, this is obvious that it do nothing for people as always. The only thing we can do is to take a loan on https://cashcat.ph/cash-loans-on-card-sure-approval-in-taguig to survive