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Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority

arstechnica.com

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Re: Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority

#51

Post by declan »

amccollum wrote: post #44
declan wrote: post #37

Current headline: "GOP’s “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority" More accurate headline: "GOP’s “Internet Freedom Act” preserves 2015-era FCC Internet regulation status quo" Another headline: "GOP’s “Internet Freedom Act” temporarily prevents FCC from enacting 3-2 partisan Internet regulations, unless a future Congress changes things" Yet another headline: "GOP’s “Internet Freedom Act” shift…

From your post: It makes more sense for Congress to come up with a lasting solution that isn't subject to regulatory bounce-back, and this is what the bill being described in the article seems to do. From the article: But from what we know about Lee's bill so far, it appears the proposal wouldn't impose any type of net neutrality rules to replace the current ones. Wherein lies the so-called "lasting solution"?

Any lasting solution would be negotiated by Congress.

Re: Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority

#52

Post by deelowe »

arca_vorago wrote: post #23
mikhailt wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't there a bill back in 80s/90s to pay the ISPs to modernize the grid with 100mbps across the entire country? Politics isn't the sole problem, lobbying in the company interests instead of the customers is the other problem. There has to be strict federal laws to outlaw lobbying and any type of incentives for all federal employees including the politicians. No gifting, no promises for the future (job), and so on.…

What lots of people don't know is many ISPs across the country took that money and shoved it in exec pockets and then raised rates and never invested in infrastructure. An exec of one in my area for example was caught embezzling millions of that grant money.

Like most things, what really happened is complicated. Here's a good hn thread on the matter.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7709556

If you have more interest in understanding the issue, there's plenty of good assessments. Everything from the explosion of wireless, to hdtv, to local municipalities, to mergers, and technological limitations are to blame.

Re: Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority

#53

Post by epistasis »

rayiner wrote: post #48
epistasis wrote: post #2

This is why politics is important, even in tech. We need some grownups to represent us. If you spend ~$50/month on home internet access, and $50/month on cell phone access, that's $1200/year for internet connectivity. How much do you spend on hardware per year? Do you buy a >$1200 laptop per year? How much money does Google make off of your info? The ISPs are rolling in cash. They have terrible customer service. They…

> How much money does Google make off of your info? Alphabet's net income in 2016 was $19.5 billion, as much as Comcast and Verizon put together. Alphabet's return on invested capital and operating margins were significantly higher than either. There are various reasons to regulate ISPs, but "they make too much money" isn't a particularly good one: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corp... (tele…

Google isn't one of the major internet providers here, whether Google's business has proper competition or not is not my point.

My point is that we pay ISPs as much as we pay for the rest of the computing infrastructure, that they are a major player, with tons of money and high profits, and terrible service. That they aren't acting like the big boys, even though they have the cash to.

ISPs are currently entrenched without competition. The current FCC fudges stats to wrongly state that there is competition in the ISP space, whereas in reality almost nobody has more than one broadband option.

Re: Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority

#54

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #48
epistasis wrote: post #2

This is why politics is important, even in tech. We need some grownups to represent us. If you spend ~$50/month on home internet access, and $50/month on cell phone access, that's $1200/year for internet connectivity. How much do you spend on hardware per year? Do you buy a >$1200 laptop per year? How much money does Google make off of your info? The ISPs are rolling in cash. They have terrible customer service. They…

> How much money does Google make off of your info? Alphabet's net income in 2016 was $19.5 billion, as much as Comcast and Verizon put together. Alphabet's return on invested capital and operating margins were significantly higher than either. There are various reasons to regulate ISPs, but "they make too much money" isn't a particularly good one: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corp... (tele…

[deleted]

Re: Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority

#55

Post by [deleted] »

mikhailt wrote: post #10
epistasis wrote: post #2

This is why politics is important, even in tech. We need some grownups to represent us. If you spend ~$50/month on home internet access, and $50/month on cell phone access, that's $1200/year for internet connectivity. How much do you spend on hardware per year? Do you buy a >$1200 laptop per year? How much money does Google make off of your info? The ISPs are rolling in cash. They have terrible customer service. They…

Wasn't there a bill back in 80s/90s to pay the ISPs to modernize the grid with 100mbps across the entire country? Politics isn't the sole problem, lobbying in the company interests instead of the customers is the other problem. There has to be strict federal laws to outlaw lobbying and any type of incentives for all federal employees including the politicians. No gifting, no promises for the future (job), and so on.…

[deleted]

Re: Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority

#57

Post by jonomw »

bkeroack wrote: post #3

As a counterpoint to some of the outrage/hysteria over the new net neutrality policy, check out this interview with the new FCC chairman Ajit Pai: https://thefederalist.com/2017/04/26/fcc-chairman-ajit-pai-s... He makes some really good points and generally comes across as well-informed and well-intentioned. In this climate of crazy media hype it's good to keep an open mind and listen to the actual people working on…

I actively welcome and even seek out conversations in opposition to net neutrality. I do this because, to me, an echo chamber becomes claustrophobic extremely quickly.

But, despite all this searching, I have yet to find a meaningful argument in opposition. They are either vague or filled with misassumptions. I have yet to find someone (with a correct understanding of the concept) to argue that it actually helps consumers. Their argument always stems from the fear of over-regulation or a historical lack of net neutrality regulation that still allowed the internet to flourish (which is a nonsensical argument). They never challenge the technical rules themselves.

This interview (along with almost anything else coming from Pai) falls under this meaningless argument in opposition.

Re: Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority

#58

Post by snickerbockers »

Karunamon wrote: post #28
snickerbockers wrote: post #25

Then don't do business with terrible companies that invade your privacy.

Okay. I'll become less effective at my job, because the only search engine worth a darn is the second largest dataminer in the world. In fact, scratch that, I won't even have internet access, because the ISP datamines me. Now I'm out of work and homeless. No bank accounts either. The only stuff near me are instances of corporate banks that datamine my spending habits all to hell. Same for credit cards. When you figur…

>Okay. I'll become less effective at my job, because the only search engine worth a darn is the second largest dataminer in the world.

Clearly the cost of losing your privacy is worth it to you because choose not to use competing services like duckduckgo that will respect your privacy.

With respects to banks and ISPs, the major players in those industries support overregulation because they know it prevents smaller competitors from rising up and taking their business away with a superior product.

Re: Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority

#59

Post by problems »

socrates1998 wrote: post #11

Why aren't google, facebook, amazon and apple fighting against this? They are some of the biggest companies in the world and they just seem to be rolling over at this. What gives?

It's easy money for them - they pay the big ISPs to secure their monopolies for them. No upstart can ever threaten to compete again.

Re: Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neutrality authority

#60

Post by dv_dt »

rayiner wrote: post #48
epistasis wrote: post #2

This is why politics is important, even in tech. We need some grownups to represent us. If you spend ~$50/month on home internet access, and $50/month on cell phone access, that's $1200/year for internet connectivity. How much do you spend on hardware per year? Do you buy a >$1200 laptop per year? How much money does Google make off of your info? The ISPs are rolling in cash. They have terrible customer service. They…

> How much money does Google make off of your info? Alphabet's net income in 2016 was $19.5 billion, as much as Comcast and Verizon put together. Alphabet's return on invested capital and operating margins were significantly higher than either. There are various reasons to regulate ISPs, but "they make too much money" isn't a particularly good one: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corp... (tele…

Yes, it's far far easier to switch from google to duckduckgo or some other search provider. Or from any google sub-product to a competitor than it is to change your ISP. And that's even if you have another ISP to change to.
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