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Net Neutrality Bill Sails Through the House But Faces an Uncertain Political Future (washingtonpost.com)
House lawmakers on Wednesday approved a Democrat-backed bill (alternative source) that would restore rules requiring AT&T, Verizon and other Internet providers to treat all Web traffic equally, marking an early step toward reversing one of the most significant deregulatory moves of the Trump era. From a report: But the net neutrality measure is likely to stall from here, given strong Republican opposition in the GOP-controlled Senate and the White House, where aides to President Trump this week recommended that he veto the legislation if it ever reaches his desk. The House's proposal, which passed by a vote of 232-190, would reinstate federal regulations that had banned AT&T, Verizon and other broadband providers from blocking or slowing down customers' access to websites. Adopted in 2015 during the Obama administration, these net neutrality protections had the backing of tech giants and startups as well as consumer advocacy groups, which together argued that strong federal open Internet protections were necessary to preserve competition and allow consumers unfettered access to movies, music and other content of their choice.
For all the people that say both parties are the same, here's a clear difference in policy.
Unless you're against Net Neutrality, don't vote for the GOP next cycle
If my ISP starts fiddling with my connection I'll pick another ISP. Remember buying internet access is a voluntary transaction between two parties if you don't like the service pick someone else.
The 1990s called and want their ISPs back.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
That's not always an option, especially if you live in a building that has an exclusive contract with Comcast.
My internet is still working for me for what I reasonably expect from my ISP for the price I am paying. If my ISP starts fiddling with my connection I'll pick another ISP. Remember buying internet access is a voluntary transaction between two parties if you don't like the service pick someone else.
Let me know how well that works out for you when picking a non-fiddling ISP is about as easy as finding gasoline "on sale" in your town.
And it's that bury-your-head-in-the-sand mentality that will allow monopolies to eventually eradicate your ability to choose. You won't even notice it until it's too late. For a large portion of our internet service (cellular), you're already down to choosing from one of the few monopolies left.
My internet is still working for me for what I reasonably expect from my ISP for the price I am paying. If my ISP starts fiddling with my connection I'll pick another ISP.
Remember buying internet access is a voluntary transaction between two parties if you don't like the service pick someone else.
Yeah, I'll make sure to switch from my one cable provider to my one cable provider if they start acting up.
I’m a hardcore Network Neutrality supporter & I really wish NN was a single Issue that would get people to change Who they vote for but it isn’t. Without sufficient Senate support this bill is completely useless grandstanding and affects no-one but ineffectual cheerleaders.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
And if you only have one provider because of monopoly deals?
Thats my point.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Doesn't surprise me that this horse manure is from an AC.
Mitch McConnell should not have the authority to deny a vote on a bill passed by the House. Nancy Pelosi should not have the authority to block a bill passed by the Senate.
We need a rule that forces a vote on any bill passed by the other body after a suitable period of time for debate. We as voters have a right to know where our elected officials stand, otherwise the people lose control to wealthy donors.
Greed is the root of all evil.
Actually, it's even worse than that; these Internet monopolies have their foundation in government-granted monopoly rights, and thus you want government to save society from government.
Well, yes. IF you're going to give out government-granted monopoly rights (which IS what has and is happening), then ALSO ensure government-enforced neutrality.
Otherwise, get government COMPLETELY out of the business and don't give out the monopolies in the first place.
There's no technical challenge to net neutrality. There's only a greed challenge.
And sure, we can build the mesh networks, I'm all for that. In the meantime, let's use political power to stop the ISPs from ripping everyone off.
These are not mutually exclusive.
By the way, will the mesh network be neutral, where node owners get paid for bandwidth? Or will people be levying charges based on the destination of packets?
Unless you are in a market that is served by a single provider, in which case you just go without reasonable access?
You clearly do not understand the issue at all.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
How are you planning to build mesh networks when there's limited (read: monopoly) choices for the actual connection to the internet? It's all well and good to have a mesh connection, but if that's dependent on a filtered/metered/throttled/non-neutral connection to the backbone, what's the improvement?
Political grandstanding by one party in congress, controlling one house, will not pass the other party, controlling the other house, nor the presidency (who has to sign it).
Thank God for divided government.
-Styopa
Yup, you can always move from one place where the local gov't gave out a monopoly to another place where the local gov't gave out a monopoly. This behavior is endemic and widespread. You'll just move from one monopoly to another.
Really.
So in order to get around a bad-faith company abusing their market position, I should conduct a multi-hundred-thousand dollar transaction to sell my house, pack up all my earthly belongings at financial and time expense, and move to where another company may or may not be abusing their monopoly position already?
There is a non-zero probability that you are a massive idiot.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Discuss this YESTERDAY?
Cheerleading on Slashdot never changes I guess..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Absolute fallacy. What you should be asking for is NOT ALLOWING DONATIONS FROM THE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS. Get politicians out of the business of voting to please their big donors by REMOVING THE ABILITY FOR THEM TO TAKE THE BIG DONATIONS.
Without even trying c-span channel surfing yesterday I found republicans explaining their opposition in the form of bashing Title II.
Democrats could have avoided this problem. They could have defined clean NN. If republicans still wanted to attack clean NN at least their excuses for doing so would be more transparent and less defensible to voters.
1) No substantive point here. Nothing but insults 2) You have no idea who I am, even though I, unlike you, have the courage to post without the mask of an AC. 3) I enjoy debating with trolls. You won't win against me, and you'll just continue to show that you're incapable of arguing an well-thought point.
Way to respond without actually giving an example of how it could be done with the current infrastructure.
With Congress split, both House & Senate will spend half their time overwhelmingly passing bills that would never be passed by the other chamber, signed into law or pass constitutional muster. These are strictly demonstrations to garner more campaign funds or to inflame the support base. It's a jerk-off fest.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Google, Facebook are not regulated monopolies. AT&T and the cable companies are. I think this is giving more power to more lightly regulated entities to control internet content. They already are with their restrictive content policies.
It'll be killed by Mitch McConnell in the Senate. The Dems will then add it to the growing list of reasons to vote for them and not the GOP, which given that this is a partisan issue (voting is generally along party lines with one or two GOPers breaking ranks when they know it's safe to do so as it dies in the Senate) I don't think that's unfair.
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I think the AC is implying that if votes were secret, then the politicians would be inclined to vote their conscience (against the big donors) even after taking giant bags of cash from those same donors.
I'm also pretty sure that notion is laughable.
Actually, imagine the industry panic if people just started saying "fuck the Internet, why do we even need it at all?" and canceled.
You call your utility companies and tell them to start sending paper bills again, and pay them by check or over the phone.
Actually call the pizza place down the street you like to get pizza from and tell them what you want to order.
Buy things from local businesses instead of ordering them from Amazon; most businesses on the Internet have phones too, you know, you can call them to order something.
Go to Redbox and get a DVD instead of 'streaming' things.
Like some particular music? Buy a CD of it instead of 'streaming' it.
Want to be 'social'? Actually show up and be actually social with people, live and in person instead of using cancerous 'social media'.
Buy a newspaper to find out what's going on in the world.
And so on.
You don't have to have Internet. We lived just fine without it for 200 years, you can live without it now, if need be.
If many people started doing that in response to ISPs being shitty, they'd have to change their practices.
the argument then morphs to "this wouldn't have occurred if the government didn't grant the ISPs monopolies". It's a strange point to make because it mostly talks about what should have been done YEARS and YEARS ago but not what should be down NOW. Just because something was born out of a flawed process doesn't mean you should surrender to making improvements.
How about not surrendering to the idea that the flawed original idea (granting the ISPs monopolies) is permanent and that we can't fix that?
This is the internet people. Save it!
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
The opposite should happen. The government is only able to grant the monopolies through their power of eminent domain. To me, that is the doctrine that says the public's need is so overwhelming that we're going to use the force of government to seize someone's property.
Well, if it is so important to the common good that the use of force is justified, then the resource should not leave the public's control. Just like the roads, the communication and power infrastructure should be taken over by the government. ISPs and power generation should remain private businesses. The government should create rules to control how the resources are accessed and used, just like the roads. It should have always been this way.
Ever notice how the worst parts of our system are the result of poor decisions early on?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Take your life into your own hands. Build the world you want, like our forefathers did.
By turning ever more to the warm, inviting, strangling hands of the Nanny State, you are building a tyranny for future generations. All so you can sit there comfortably, whining about how the latest SuperHero movie could be streamed in higher quality for cheaper.
Sounds good, eliminate all regulations and bring back the Robber Barons!
Actually, imagine the industry panic if people just started saying "fuck the Internet, why do we even need it at all?" and canceled.
You call your utility companies and tell them to start sending paper bills again, and pay them by check or over the phone.
Actually call the pizza place down the street you like to get pizza from and tell them what you want to order.
Buy things from local businesses instead of ordering them from Amazon; most businesses on the Internet have phones too, you know, you can call them to order something.
Go to Redbox and get a DVD instead of 'streaming' things.
Like some particular music? Buy a CD of it instead of 'streaming' it.
Want to be 'social'? Actually show up and be actually social with people, live and in person instead of using cancerous 'social media'.
Buy a newspaper to find out what's going on in the world.
And so on.
You don't have to have Internet. We lived just fine without it for 200 years, you can live without it now, if need be.
If many people started doing that in response to ISPs being shitty, they'd have to change their practices.
None of those helps me much with not wanting to drive 80 miles to use my college's computer servers (the closest college with a PHD program to my full time job) or saving on gas by working remotely (as bad as cable costs are, gas costs are worse).
Vote with your wallet. But you can't because your so addicted to it.
True, could just quit my job and college because I can't do it without an internet connection! You offering to cover my expenses?
he's the one who started the lie about the "War on Coal"
I haven't seen anything that Mitch has done for the people of Kentucky. Nothing.
You can't make this stuff up, people.
Do you even realize that Kentucky has a large coal industry?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
A bill that has significant support in the Senate, maybe?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Responding to myself to add a "fer instance":
The vote to show the Mueller report got significant support in the Senate, didn't it?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
So, I want to know where all the Senators running for President stand on the idiotic Green New Deal. Unfortunately, they all voted "present".
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Besides, the giant bags of money buying politician meme is kinda silly, because it is inefficient from the corporation's perspective.
Which makes more sense:
A) Constantly paying a ransom to keep the politician voting for your concern on every bill that comes up.
B) Finding politicians that leaned a little in your direction, then paying a little to support them and keep them in office.
If I were in Congress, I could not fathom selling a vote for a few tens of thousands. We're talking about selling off my honor and possibly damaging my country. A vote for a bill like NN would be worth at least a million. But, if I were inclined to support NN, then I wouldn't be upset that Google contributed a $10K to my relection effort.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
and lord knows I've done polls on this forum to ask if anyone was going to change their vote. But as part of a broader narrative that the GOP consistently ignores the Will of the People I think it will change votes.
See, this is the difference between the GOP and the Democrats. The GOP pushes their narratives and their policies relentlessly. They lost on Net Neutrality time and time again but they never stopped. Eventually random election cycles and a crap candidate put a pro-corporate Republican in the Whitehouse and now they've won. It'll take a sea change in American politics to get NN back. The Dems would have to take a super majority in the House, Senate and maybe even the presidency if it wasn't at least 70 (for a veto override).
That said, this is the Dems trying to get a message out. One that I'd argue is correct. The GOP really isn't your friend. They do what their donors do 100% of the time and ignore regular folk. We see that in the last tax bill, in the wars they keep us in, in their opposition to the ACA's pre-existing condition coverage and in pretty much everything they do. That point needs to be hammered home because there's a strong taboo about "partisanship" in this country. But as always facts don't care about our feelings and the facts are what the facts are, the GOP has been running against public opinion for decades now. Sure, there are right wing "Blue Dog" Dems who do the same, and the folks who spearheaded the NN vote are the same folks talking about primarying those Dems...
I'm saying there's something left to salvage in the Democratic party. I stopped thinking that way about the GOP ages ago.
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BOTH parties are corrupt. BOTH parties consistently do things that serve the interests of a few, to the detriment of the many. The particulars of WHICH few they serve are different between the two parties. The flavor of the arguments they use to justify their actions is different two.
But your belief that one party is intrinsically morally superior to the other is not only false, it is harmful. That belief is what motivates party-line voters to remain party-line voters. The phenomenon of party-line voting supports the entrance of corrupt candidates into the playing field. Though this is just one factor among many, it is a big one.
YOU have a biased, one-sided perspective. YOU are an extremist, and that extremism blinds you far more than you realize, and motivates you to act in ways that are ultimately harmful to the greater good, and even harmful to your own agendas.
YOU need to learn to think and see objectively before you will get an accurate handle on politics.
Here you go. Learn you some history.
Sure, they did some great things and the US wouldn't have been the great industrial power of the 20th century without them, but nothing is one sided: https://prezi.com/qleqtleyvtpi...
In a sane political world, representatives would look at how their constituents were affected by legislation and vote accordingly.
The people who have the most to lose by the lack of net neutrality are the ones who live in areas where there is a wired broadband monopoly. The vast majority of those areas are outside the major cities, and mostly Republican voting.
Republican legislators who are looking out for their constituents should thus be in favor of net neutrality.
Or at least, they should offer market-based amendments to it like "NN only has to be enforced in areas that have a wired broadband monopoly".
The fact that this IS a partisan issue means it's being treated as tribal bullshit.
Again. As usual.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Otherwise, get government COMPLETELY out of the business and don't give out the monopolies in the first place.
"In the first place" was many decades ago. You can't stop what already happened. However, you can stop it from happening again -- and more than two decades ago federal law stopped anyone from handing out a cable communications exclusive franchise to anyone. That's about ten years more than any existing franchise was good for, so for more than the last decade there have been and are no cable exclusive franchises anywhere in the US.
But cable isn't the only Internet service method, and no ISP has every been granted a monopoly anywhere in the US. Ever.
For many people cable really is the only viable Internet service method. DSL bandwidth isn't adequate unless you live very close to the DSLAM, and wireless is way too expensive.
Because building out a cable network is massively expensive as well as a bureaucratic nightmare, it basically means that incumbent operators are de facto monopolies, even without the monopoly contract.
Remember when Google was trying to throw billions of dollars around making city-wide fiber networks, and then gave up? Yeah, if they can't get it done, what chance does some small-time operation with orders of magnitude less capital and political might?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Cable service is a natural monopoly. The first company to enter a market has to pay (Or get the taxpayer to pay) the vast costs of infrastructure - digging up roads to lay cable, buying rights to install distribution cabinets, the expensive stuff. Once done, they can charge whatever they want, for there is no alternative for the customers. For a second to enter, they would have to pay just as much - to gain access to a contested market, where all the potential customers are already signed up with an incumbent. Not worth the expense.
For many people cable really is the only viable Internet service method.
That has nothing to do with what I said.
it basically means that incumbent operators are de facto monopolies,
That also has nothing to do with what I said. I replied to a comment about governments handing out monopolies. That doesn't happen any more, and it happened so long ago that none of those still exist.
It tells me that you don't know a damn thing about the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
Here's a big hint: there's a shitload of coal miners that live in Kentucky.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Oh my how did we ever survive before the 1990's when we started having the Internet? It was all stone knives and bearskins living in caves then BOOM, Internet!
Bipartisan legislation that makes legitimate compromises in order to have a prayer of passing?
It really is possible to *work* with the other party to get shit done, you know...
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
And yet when the same game was played by The Senate Majority Leader From the Party to Which You Bear Allegiance, I doubt you had much to say about it.
See: Harry Reid and his shitcanning of the many ACA repeals passed by the house. But it's obstructionist now, all of a sudden? And McConnell is "bad" for doing the exact same damn thing that basically every Senate majority leader in history has done - not waste the Senate's time on timed floor debate that serves no purpose and votes that are assured to fail, after endless amendments are attempted to be hung on it, and each voted for?
What purpose would any of that serve, except to actually get a Senator to record a vote on that particular bill? Or to get incredible sound bites about how someone voted for something in committee before voting against it on the floor because of amendments, etc. so you can end up distilling it down to a 5 second out-of-context quote to hammer someone with in the next election?
I'd rather they focus floor time on shit that has a prayer of becoming law.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
to your federally protected NN ready wireline.
As equally slow as all NN protected networks.
No competition. No innovation. No community broadband.
Your telco monopoly can enjoy full federal protection with NN rules and laws to keep out any new services.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
0/10 lurk moar.
Trolling used to be a art, now any room-temperature IQ idiot with an internet connection thinks they can do it. Sad, sad, sad.
Really.
So in order to get around a bad-faith company abusing their market position, I should conduct a multi-hundred-thousand dollar transaction to sell my house, pack up all my earthly belongings at financial and time expense, and move to where another company may or may not be abusing their monopoly position already?
https://www.news.com.au/techno... Not so far fetched - that was our Prime Minister at the time, who was directing the government owned nbnco on the expectations of the national broadband network implementation - the new monopoly for fixed line connections.
I'm sure you can see the irony where the owner of the entity that is going to make broadband available to every single premise in the nation is telling someone to move house for a better internet connection. Just WTH are they going to deliver?
Oh my how did we ever survive before the 1990's when we started having the Internet? It was all stone knives and bearskins living in caves then BOOM, Internet!
RadioShack had this awesome catalog full of special order parts. Blockbuster had aisles of movies. Circuit City had all the cool new gadgets. The local mall wasn't a fucking ghost town.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
"For many people cable really is the only viable Internet service method."
Really? I love my cable internet, but if it went away, I can access the net on my phone's data package. Also, there's the Hughes satellite and the Excede satellite, and maybe another, not sure. And in the forseeable future, Elon Musk and at least one other is dedicated to having a large constellation of low earth orbiting satellites to do the same connections as all these others.
What monopoly?
Oh my how did we ever survive before the 1990's when we started having the Internet? It was all stone knives and bearskins living in caves then BOOM, Internet!
That statement didn't work so well to convince my boss.
And how about "natural monopolies"?
In the end, either WE, THE PEOPLE decide what services are available and set the terms and conditions
Or THEY will, to our detriment.
for examples, see Insulin pricing
No.
This monopoly exists because INDUCEMENTS were granted to Cable operators nationwide, city by city
Then bought and their "guarantee" maintained when the signing party no longer participated.
Good old Net Monopoly, with Capitalists deciding the flow of information
I'll take WE THE PEOPLE for 600