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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

#521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

cars cost "tens of thousands" yet personal automobile ownership has been feasible and has a huge positive impact on the economy. If that 10-90K ballpark cost estimate is accurate then accessing the information superhighway could be a similar situation.

Right, but not being able to afford a car severely limits people's' access to jobs, care, entertainment, groceries, etc. And this would be worse; access to the Internet is starting to be assumed here in the US. If it's going to be it should be treated as a right.

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

#522
post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

On top of that republicans have been enforcing net neutrality for decades.

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

#523
post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

When you explain what Net Neutrality is, an overwhelming majority of people supported it, including republicans. This isn't just a tech-literate liberal issue. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/12/12...

A majority of people support Democrat's economic policies...even though Republicans hold a majority of the seats at both the state and federal level. It seems like people aren't necessarily voting for the party that represent's their positions--or, more likely, there are wedge issues that cause them to vote another way.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/05/2...

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

#524
post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fear of Non-Net-Neutrality goes far beyond the usual "there's only two ISPs where I life and they both offer the same deals". It's something in completely its own category of nefariousness because they could be as anticompetitive as they want, and the market could not solve it. That's because the injured party isn't their customers, who could take their business elsewhere, or at least loudly complain on the inter…

This doesn't appear to be a problem in any other industry. If I am a farmer, I don't have some inalienable right to have my produce on the shelves of the local grocery store. If am selling widgets through a catalog, I don't have some inalienable right to have my catalogs delivered to customers without paying a fee. So why don't the results you predict occur in those industries? No one worries about grocery stores cap…

But you do get to use roads to deliver stuff to your customers.

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

#525

The voters elected a Republican government. That a Republican-led FCC would err on the side of under-regulating telecommunications companies is about the least surprising outcome you can imagine. Anybody who told you that lobbying the FCC was going to make a difference here was, whether they meant to or not, selling a bill of goods. As someone who respects but mostly profoundly disagrees with principled Republican la…

This is hilariously naive. You're essentially pointing fingers and laughing at people who you esteem to be less intelligent than yourself while making pretty absurd statements that have little to no basis in actual fact

For instance the original, and probably fatal, blow to net neutrality was the 1996 Telecommunications act that was passed mainly to encourage "wire to wire competition", which has since become a total farce. In exchange for this absurd concept we not only gave the telecoms huge tax cuts (nominally so they could expand infrastructure) that they then directly plowed into dividends, share buybacks, and bonuses, we also allowed the sale of wireless spectrums (another public good). But most importantly we enshrined local monopolies into law. Almost every single fight we've had for net neutrality since then has stemmed from this legislation. Guess who signed it into law? Bill Clinton, a democrat. And while the Senate and House both had Republican majorities the bill was passed with largely bipartisan support (less than 20% of the Senate and less than 5% of the house voted against it) and heavy support from the Clinton administration.

But lets say you don't buy that, lets take a look at the current political climate. The largest recipients of telecom dollars in the Senate have been overwhelmingly Democrats (it's about 50/50 over the past 8 years in the House), the telecoms have extremely influential Democrats in their pocket like Nancy Pelosi (who laughably claimed that the ISPs would save us from the Republican bill to allow ISPs to sell your internet traffic history), and even ex-Obama administrators are largely applauding today's ruling. Don't for a second think you or anyone else is somehow above this just because you identify with a certain tribe.

Also it's pretty odd that you think name dropping engineering friends means you have an informed opinion on this extremely non-technical matter, as if an RF engineer would have an informed opinion on the intricacies of economic repercussions of spectrum auctions.

But you do have one very good point, elections have consequences. Vote out anyone who takes a dime from telecoms, ISPs, interconnect providers, or even tech companies. The issue here is not ideological, it is monetary. Corporate influence has completely taken over our political system and regardless of party we are helpless to stop it until we take a principled stand and refuse to vote for the representative who's trying to sell us to the highest bidder simply because they wear the same color shirt as the people we associate with.

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

#526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree with you. I believe group polarization [0] causes forums on the internet such as this one to exaggerate how bad something is going to be and this is one of those times. My biggest concern is if something actually world-ending were to be about to happen it would be sort of hard to tell by reading Reddit and Hackernews. Because the users of those collectively dial the alarm severity up to "catastrophic"…

That's not an argument, that's bulverism. How about you explain why repealing Net Neutrality is necessary in the first place? Who actually benefits from it?

There's not any point in debating it in the comments right here and right now. Time will tell if my enjoyment of the internet is severely degraded to the degree predicted by the most upvoted comments on Reddit/HN. I was simply expressing my prediction that it won't be.

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

#527
post #450

In 24 hours no one will be thinking about this and literally nothing will happen, despite the absolute mouth-foaming hysteria we're seeing today.

I think the long term price structures will get worse, and ISP will do even more stupid shit like blocking torrents, opening up https connections.

But of course you are right that for the majority of people nothing will change.

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

#528
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…

I'm always surprised that folks on here don't think about the future of last mile connectivity being wireless, instead of wired. Next generation wireless networks (5G) are poised to have broadband like speeds, faster latency, and high bandwidth. Wireless operators have been pretty explicit in that their plan to get into the home broadband game. These networks are a few years away from a broad roll out, AT&T is starti…

Wireless is inherent issues that fiber and copper does not.

1. Wireless is burst not pure data streams, latency issues. 2. High probability of interference. 3. High probability of collisions, wireless spectra bouncing off one another and objects, requiring multiple transmissions.

Big difference between Wireless and Wired / Fiber. Pokeman GO event in IL is a prime example of inherent issues.

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

#529
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…

> ISP's kill competition by making legal arrangements with local governments...

Seems like this should read "local governments monopolize ISPs." ISPs have no other access to this arrangement.

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

#530

Unfortunately telcos have had a great year in power consolidation in spite of everyone's opinions or demands. Representatives in government have represented the ISPs/telcos over individual demands, voting in favor of their bribes over what nearly everyone wants. Jeff Flake started this destruction in the senate where he pushed through the ISP privacy bill that allows them monopoly power and first rights to users info…

Satellite internet is coming fast and and from people who want you to hate your local provider and their PR will say 'we will give you free access'. Hope it will work out, the plans SpaceX and OneWeb have announced are pretty crazy.
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