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F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

nytimes.com

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Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#361

Post by loeg »

gameshot911 wrote: post #304
Dangeranger wrote: post #34

This is proof positive that the current FCC commission has ignored the will of the voters on this issue. Support for Net Neutrality was overwhelming and bi-partisan, yet Ajit Pai just plowed forward without consideration for what the citizens demanded. This is government at its worst.

>This is government at it's worst. Is it? Republicans were voted by the public into Congress, into the presidency. They are acting just as anyone voting for them could expect. In that sense they are representing the will of the people who duly elected them. The FCC ignored the will of a small % of technology-oriented, predominately liberal voters. Just because all the media that you might tend to consume and the peop…

> Republicans were voted by the public

Even this claim is arguable, given gerrymandered congressional districts and inherent overweighting of low-population rural states in the Senate.

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#362

Post by djschnei »

huffmsa wrote: post #248
Dangeranger wrote: post #34

This is proof positive that the current FCC commission has ignored the will of the voters on this issue. Support for Net Neutrality was overwhelming and bi-partisan, yet Ajit Pai just plowed forward without consideration for what the citizens demanded. This is government at its worst.

Big bureaucratic, un-elected government institutions are problematic? Well color me pink.

Seriously! I'm playing the world's tiniest violin for 90% of people upset over this. Reaping what they sow, if you ask me.

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#363

Post by plandis »

wdewind wrote: post #81
brian-armstrong wrote: post #5

If you voted for Trump, this one's on you.

Please don't bring divisive politics into HN. Fwiw Ajit Pai was appointed to the FCC by Obama not Trump.

Please don’t call out facts a divisive just because you don’t agree with them.

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#364

Post by kup0 »

tptacek wrote: post #192
russdill wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think the biggest take away of this is to push the fact that republican legislators did not listen to their constituents. At all. They did not put their constituents first. At all. The chairman actually talked about consumers working with the FCC to enforce regulations as a bad thing.

I do not agree. I believe Republican voters do not in fact want the government extensively regulating the Internet. It is very difficult to argue in 2017 that the Republican party is the party of a pragmatic, consumer-protected regulatory state. The Republicans believe that the market will take better care of Internet users than any regulatory agency. On this one issue, it's possible they're even right.

1) Republican voter support is broad for net neutrality. Multiple sources have shown this pretty consistently.

2) The Republican deregulatory ideal (if it works at all) only works if competition exists. It doesn't. The market can only have a chance to work if it exists.

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#365

Post by dv_dt »

juris wrote: post #135

This wouldn't be a problem if ISP's weren't de facto monopolies. If there was competition in this space, then there would be incentive to improve the infrastructure and Internet speeds. However, ISP's kill competition by making legal arrangements with local governments to only do business with them, and by cutting competitors' cables. Since we have no way to guarantee reasonable speeds to small time websites now, we…

Local governments have been legally prohibited from making exclusive ISP franchise agreements for quite a while now. IMHO the only thing really preventing local competition is the economic aspects of laying multiple physical wires to residences giving the setup strong natural monopoly conditions.

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#366

Post by mrguyorama »

rkuykendall-com wrote: post #110
jackfrodo wrote: post #36

This has made me feel pretty damn powerless, as pretty much every site/person of significance has stated their opposition to such a repeal, and yet they went through it anyway. Just a gut feeling that our democracy isn't working properly when such a loud and clear, great majority of the population messaging is completely ignored.

> our democracy isn't working properly Democracy doesn't work through public declarations, it works through elections. One year ago, the states chose Donald Trump as president, knowing they he would end Net Neutrality [1]. If a population wants to send a different message, they must do it in the next election [2]. [1] https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/53260835850816716... [2] https://swingleft.org/

>the states chose Donald Trump as president

The states, yet not the people

Sure, he won with our current system, but even school children think our current system is silly

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#367

Post by tcheard »

Someone1234 wrote: post #210
juris wrote: post #135

This wouldn't be a problem if ISP's weren't de facto monopolies. If there was competition in this space, then there would be incentive to improve the infrastructure and Internet speeds. However, ISP's kill competition by making legal arrangements with local governments to only do business with them, and by cutting competitors' cables. Since we have no way to guarantee reasonable speeds to small time websites now, we…

The "last mile" is a utility, and by its very nature will always result in monopolistic control. It is impractical and irrational to wire up a home to multiple ISPs with their own fiber channels. Each channel could cost tens of thousands to install. Instead the "last mile" should be a non-profit funded by ISPs who lease the channels. The non-profit is responsible for installing the "last mile," upgrading it, and repa…

So an open-access network (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-access_network).

This is done quite successfully in other countries around the world, like New Zealand where we mainly have one infrastructure provider (selected and monitored by the Government), who must offer fair and standard pricing to any ISP who wants to add value to the network.

As a result, we have many ISP options throughout the country and competition between providers is high.

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#368

Post by dragonwriter »

slg wrote: post #28

This has been asked a few times but never fully answered, can someone explain why this vote in particular is a problem? I understand net neutrality and I am all for it, but there was considerable public doubt before reclassification that this was the proper way to go about it. It also doesn't seem like the internet regulatory state of pre-2015 was a disaster. Would we better off focusing our efforts on increasing com…

> It also doesn't seem like the internet regulatory state of pre-2015 was a disaster.

From 2010-2014 similar rules to the 2015 rules were in place, citing a different statutory basis; these ruled were struck down in 2014, with the court pointing to Title II, be basis of the 2015 rules, as the available statutory basis for the kind of rules adopted in 2010.

From 2014-2015 there were no open internet rules in place, but the industry was operating in awareness that he FCC majority was drafting new rules with similar objectives.

And FCC net neutrality policy existed from 2004-2010, working on yet a different mechanism, which was struck down by the courts in 2010.

And before that, things get complicated, because even though there was no net neutrality policy for broadband in general, there was also very little broadband of any kind, and what there was often, for much of the pre-2004 period, fell under different regulatory regimes based on the underlying technology (cable as cable, DSL under telephone related rules.)

So, perhaps none of the pre-2015 regulatory states were a disaster, but repealing the 2015 order doesn't returns us to any of those states, or even to a condition where the law would allow the FCC to reimplement them. In fact, it gets us farther from any of the 2004-2015 states than the 2015-2017 state was.

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#369

Post by illumin8 »

ikeboy wrote: post #52
Dangeranger wrote: post #34

This is proof positive that the current FCC commission has ignored the will of the voters on this issue. Support for Net Neutrality was overwhelming and bi-partisan, yet Ajit Pai just plowed forward without consideration for what the citizens demanded. This is government at its worst.

It's funny, the FCC's mandate isn't to poll the public and do whatever most of them want. Strange how people seem to think it's a numbers game, at least when they feel the numbers are on their side

That's just not true. The FCC are appointed by our elected representatives. Why do you think they even have to pretend they are accepting public comments on things like this? If the FCC does something bad, like this, we have the ability to elect better representatives, who will throw out these telco stooges and appoint people who represent us, not the large telco monopolies.

Re: F.C.C. Repeals Net Neutrality Rules

#370

Post by sliverstorm »

noetic_techy wrote: post #325
wvenable wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ACA was actually a conservative plan that is actually good for people. In some sense, you could argue that everybody agreed with it until it became a partisan issue. NN is also good for people and also has bipartisan support (from constituents) but just got repealed. Yes, the sky won't fall but it is now a little darker.

Depends on how you spin it. Yes it was a conservative plan originally. The reasoning went something like: "Too many poor people are showing up to hospitals without health insurance and getting treated for free, driving up the cost for everyone else. We need to FORCE them to buy health insurance or else there is a penalty!" Doesn't sound that great in those terms, but that's exactly what you got. Change the way you ta…

As unpalatable as you think that sounds, it's also exactly what we do with car insurance, and has worked mostly fine there for decades, excluding enforcement problems and illegals.
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