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FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

washingtonpost.com

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Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#611

Post by bcoates »

s73ver_ wrote: post #586
bcoates wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live, I like spectrum-formerly-timewarner-formerly-roadrunner cable Internet just fine. There are a lot of alternatives to using it for home Internet around here, and I'm pretty sure the two are related. If you want better internet access, instead of begging the FCC for scraps get on repealing legislated monopoly rights for kinds of wires and/or unbundling last mile from ISP. Then ask yourself why internet re…

Why not both? Not to mention, there are areas of the country which absolutely could not support more than one provider. Why should they have to suffer non-neutral net?

Why not both: because debundling and/or demonopolizing cable involves moving against entrenched interests, and the pro-NN forces have just demonstrated they don't have the political strength to get neutrality alone, let alone "neutrality and".

Competitive, non-neutral networks is something that much of the country already has, so it's a smaller, more regional fight you might actually win. You can try for neutrality after that if it means that much to you (but at that point nobody will care because NN is a non-issue in areas with a competitive provider landscape)

Network neutrality is irrelevant to areas that can't support more than one provider, weird rural providers and satellite internet are already exempt from neutrality rules (iirc because they aren't "broadband" in the FCC sense). Those places will continue to have sucky internet until someone wires them out of charity.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#612

Post by TYPE_FASTER »

milankragujevic wrote: post #600
himom wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true. Rural folks have it worst: monopoly or no access at all. If a company like Sinclair also owned the broadband, only payola TV would work, YouTube access and bandwidth could a tiered add-on, they’d block whichever company didn’t pay the extortion protection money with no means of recourse. Also, for everyone, billing would become more complexified, obscured to extract more money from consumers and thwart cos…

Don't people have access to 4G? I live in a tiny village (1000 people) and have 40/6 home Internet via 4G that I pay less than $10/mo with a 200 GB data cap that you can prepay $5 for 100 gb more if you spend it. I'm not from the U.S. though.

I'm from the US and would love to get that service.

Fellow Americans, does it exist?

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#613

Post by lbarrett »

milankragujevic wrote: post #600
himom wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true. Rural folks have it worst: monopoly or no access at all. If a company like Sinclair also owned the broadband, only payola TV would work, YouTube access and bandwidth could a tiered add-on, they’d block whichever company didn’t pay the extortion protection money with no means of recourse. Also, for everyone, billing would become more complexified, obscured to extract more money from consumers and thwart cos…

Don't people have access to 4G? I live in a tiny village (1000 people) and have 40/6 home Internet via 4G that I pay less than $10/mo with a 200 GB data cap that you can prepay $5 for 100 gb more if you spend it. I'm not from the U.S. though.

No. I have fast cellular internet but pay $10/GB, and I consider that a pretty good deal (total for me + wife is $45/mo, including cellular and data; in Portland, OR). Your 4G internet is cheaper than most people's wired internet here in the US.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#614

Post by wanderer2323 »

jedberg wrote: post #524
opportune wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These ISP companies use legal shenanigans, coupled with the unavoidably large startup costs of creating a new/competing ISP, to effectively run regional monopolies. Google kind of gave up their master plan for Fiber after they were litigated in multiple jurisdictions essentially over bullshit that they were legally within their right to do, such as use shared lines - and that was Google, which had a ton of cash to th…

> I'm not sure what most of the anti-net neutrality side's supporting arguments are My friend was a lawyer for an ISP and now works for the FCC (I promise she's a good person otherwise). The main argument is that small ISPs can't compete if Net Neutrality exists, because they can't build a network big enough for every customer to stream Netflix and YouTube. If they could have most of their customers blocked from thos…

'We cannot build a big enough network for Netflix' is nowhere near a top reason people cannot start an ISP. Data caps and plans with different bandwidth is a working answer to the second problem. Are you sure your friend is a good person? She sounds like a typical sellout hypocrite if that's her arguments.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#615

Post by unclenoriega »

milankragujevic wrote: post #600
himom wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true. Rural folks have it worst: monopoly or no access at all. If a company like Sinclair also owned the broadband, only payola TV would work, YouTube access and bandwidth could a tiered add-on, they’d block whichever company didn’t pay the extortion protection money with no means of recourse. Also, for everyone, billing would become more complexified, obscured to extract more money from consumers and thwart cos…

Don't people have access to 4G? I live in a tiny village (1000 people) and have 40/6 home Internet via 4G that I pay less than $10/mo with a 200 GB data cap that you can prepay $5 for 100 gb more if you spend it. I'm not from the U.S. though.

I live just outside a town of 3000 (in the US). My wired (cable) connection costs $44.95/month ($54.95 without cable TV) for 10/1 with a 500GB cap.

Edit: I meant to imply that 4G would be more expensive. After checking briefly, the best offer I'm finding starts at $30/month for 5GB.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#616

Post by DigitalJack »

cannonedhamster wrote: post #601
DigitalJack wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious for your take on the wsj article: https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-fcc-can-save-the-open-i... I don't think it's paywalled.

The one written by Ajit Pai? It's paywalled, just like the every page on the internet once this guy is done screwing it up.

I was able to read it and I don't subscribe to any newspaper. Maybe it was an A/B type thing... dunno.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#617

Post by jfoutz »

Aloha wrote: post #590
himom wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AT&T is rapidly becoming what it once was, especially if the TW merger goes through. We’d be renting Wi-Fi cards, access and with additional fees by the second and byte if they had their way.

Worse. The old AT&T was heavily regulated, and provided lifetime employment with generous benefits to its employees. It was the largest employer after the Federal Government prior to divesture.

Also, 5 9s of uptime. They had many problems. Reliability was not one of them.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#618

Post by [deleted] »

bcoates wrote: post #74
fokinsean wrote: post #18

Tweet in article: >On December 14, the FCC will vote on Chairman Pai's plan to repeal President Obama's heavy-handed Internet regulations and restore Internet freedom. I love how these laws are veiled with patriotic sentiments, e.g. "Internet Freedom". Just like the "Patriot Act", it is reasonable to assume anything with these sort of labels will likely be an encroachment on your freedoms. Also >"The job of the FCC i…

Where I live, I like spectrum-formerly-timewarner-formerly-roadrunner cable Internet just fine. There are a lot of alternatives to using it for home Internet around here, and I'm pretty sure the two are related. If you want better internet access, instead of begging the FCC for scraps get on repealing legislated monopoly rights for kinds of wires and/or unbundling last mile from ISP. Then ask yourself why internet re…

[deleted]

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#619

Post by dpedu »

rexf wrote: post #589
rubicon33 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "If you like your cable company" I've never once, in my entire life, heard anyone say they like Comcast.

I hate Comcast. Not reliable and no accountability for down time in the Bay Area. If their internet service goes down, good luck on getting an ETA on when it comes back or any actual credit to your account for lost service.

I don't know about that, I was getting pretty bad packet loss recently and the instant I described the issue the guy (after mentioning it was part of a larger outage) instantly offered me a credit.

They can do good, they're just misguided.

Re: FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see

#620

Post by slimshady94 »

ghewgill wrote: post #89

For those who don't understand why net neutrality is important, it is worthwhile to read about the history of communications (telephone, radio, TV). There is an excellent book by Tim Wu called The Master Switch [0] which investigates the history of communications (with an American focus), describes how each industry start out open to all (farmers using fences for telephone, independent radio broadcasters), and each o…

How would people react to the inaccessibility of porn sites? It is, after all, a huge part of many people's internet experience. And due to its taboo nature, it probably won't be publicly offered on the ISP plans.
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