I tried commenting on the proceeding at the FCC site but I keep getting service unavailable errors. The FCC site itself is up but conveniently we the public cannot comment on the issue.
Net neutrality is in jeopardy again
11–20 of 452 posts
Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again
#12If you want people to take your article seriously, then maybe you shouldn't put a pointless animated GIF in it.
The HTML of the page doesn't contain "888". This makes it impossible for some disabled people to get the number at all.
This makes it a practical concern in addition to bad taste.
Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again
#13How much of this can just be fixed by the free market? If I feel an ISP is limiting my choices wouldn't I just switch?
How many ISPs do you have to choose from? Personally, I have two: Comcast and AT&T. Comcast has been a nightmare recently, with almost weekly outages and frequent periods of severely degraded bandwidth. AT&T (even their supposed "Fiber" offering) requires a working copper twisted-pair RJ11 outlet where the gateway is to be installed, which I don't have and which would require an electrician and multiple holes in my w…
You are choosing to not use AT&T over holes in the walls of your dwelling required for installation. The free market is working as intended in this case.
Most people really don't have a choice. You're just being a prick.
Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again
#14How much of this can just be fixed by the free market? If I feel an ISP is limiting my choices wouldn't I just switch?
How many ISPs do you have to choose from? Personally, I have two: Comcast and AT&T. Comcast has been a nightmare recently, with almost weekly outages and frequent periods of severely degraded bandwidth. AT&T (even their supposed "Fiber" offering) requires a working copper twisted-pair RJ11 outlet where the gateway is to be installed, which I don't have and which would require an electrician and multiple holes in my w…
>> Where's your free market god now?
Most places I've lived, the primary issue has been whether or not local government will allow additional networks. Mine is very set on "You can have Comcast or CenturyLink at DSL speeds". So I get DMV-like service anyway.
Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again
#15Trumps appointees disappoint me a lot. This guy and the one over the EPA
Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again
#16Does anyone else find the internet market odd? Up until now net neutrality and other policies have given us the following:
1. Massive monopolies which essentially control 95% of all tech (google, facebook, amazon, microsoft, apple, etc)
2. An internet where every consumer assumes everything should be free.
3. An internet where there's only enough room for a handfull of players in each market globally i.e. if you have a "project-management app" there will not be a successfull one for each country much less hundreds for each country.
4. Huge barriers of entry for any new player into many of the markets (no one can even begin competing with google search for less than 20 million).
I think there's still a lot of potential to open up new markets with different policies that would make the internet a much better place for both consumers and entrepreneurs - especially the small guys. I'm just not 100% sure maintaining net-neutrality is the best way to help the little guy and bolster innovation. Anyone have any ideas how we could alleviate some of the above mentioned problems?
EDIT: another question :) If net-neutrality has absolutely nothing to do with the tech monopolies maintaining their power position then why do they all support it? [https://internetassociation.org/]
Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again
#17How much of this can just be fixed by the free market? If I feel an ISP is limiting my choices wouldn't I just switch?
It costs a lot of money for ISPs to expand their areas of service. As such, they explicitly avoid expanding into areas where a competitor already exists (riskier rate of return).
To counter this, government at all levels have provided tax subsidies or outright payment to ISPs to expand into their localities. And regularly, the ISPs simply take the money and do nothing, relying on the fact that they are large enough that they can fight it out in court.
The end result is a nation of monopoly coverage.
Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again
#18I don't understand why you're getting downvoted. This is a valid question and shouldn't be downvoted so others can learn from the discussion.
Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again
#19[deleted]
Re: Net neutrality is in jeopardy again
#20How much of this can just be fixed by the free market? If I feel an ISP is limiting my choices wouldn't I just switch?
In some places, you don't have a choice of which ISP you use. It's comcast or nothing. The free market doesn't automatically fix everything, because of the high cost to entry related to infrastructure.
In rural Texas I am lucky to have the one choice I have, and it's 12 Mbps ADSL+. Most out here can't get that.