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FCC aims to reinstate net neutrality after us Democrats gain control of panel

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Re: FCC aims to reinstate net neutrality after us Democrats gain control of panel

#171
post #92
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello, Finland here. I have a true unlimited phone plan. Unlimited texts, unlimited calls, 200Mbit/s of bandwidth with unlimited data. 27€ per month. Yes, the bandwidth is capped, but getting 200 megs is possible most of the time, it's really more of an exception to not get the full speed. Sometimes some cells can become congested, but that's really rare.

There are about 70 cities in the world with a larger population than the whole of country of Finland - so maybe there is a representativeness challenge in this comparison.

That means it actually cost more to build the infrastructure per capita.

Re: FCC aims to reinstate net neutrality after us Democrats gain control of panel

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument is not that the internet would suddenly die, it’s that it would get chopped up and rebundled a-La cable tv. And we’re seeing isps give preferential treatment to services that pay them, just not instantly and only that because it’s been only 2 years (edit: comment below points out it’s been 5), business sales cycles are long and they aren’t stupid enough to immediately turn the heat up to 11 while the fro…

> because it’s been only 2 years The net neutrality repeal took effect in 2018, its been 5 years https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/technology/net-neutrality...

Apologies idk where I got the 2 years from. But I still feel like this too short a time period to claim the experiment is run , especially when several states like California[0] have their own net neutrality laws since 2018. I feel it’s kinda like saying that we don’t need federal emissions standards because the sky hasn’t fallen without them (but they are in major markets like California).

[0] https://mashable.com/article/california-net-neutrality-can-b...

Re: FCC aims to reinstate net neutrality after us Democrats gain control of panel

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have gotten it, but with services not websites. Mobile providers will sell you an "Unlimited" data plan that throttles everything after 25GB a month. Streaming Spotify and Apple Music won't count against that soft data cap. Streaming other music services will count against it. Video streaming over YouTube, Netflix, etc is capped at 480p levels. If you pay an additional monthly fee, you get upgraded to "Unlimited P…

In a more potent example, AT&T did a similar thing with streaming TV service, but they only exempted their own TV service. Using Hulu? Data cap. Fubo? Data cap. AT&T TV Now? Highest quality, no cap.

I just signed up for AT&T fiber in California and they've completely removed data caps for it.

Re: FCC aims to reinstate net neutrality after us Democrats gain control of panel

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have gotten it, but with services not websites. Mobile providers will sell you an "Unlimited" data plan that throttles everything after 25GB a month. Streaming Spotify and Apple Music won't count against that soft data cap. Streaming other music services will count against it. Video streaming over YouTube, Netflix, etc is capped at 480p levels. If you pay an additional monthly fee, you get upgraded to "Unlimited P…

Didn’t arbitrary data caps start back in the day when torrenting was a big problem? The ISPs started cutting people off because only piracy could explain such heavy usage. That was in the early 00’s iirc, prior to the net neutrality debate.

That's still a clear motivator, considering that "piracy" via bittorrent directly competes with the streaming services that pay for preferential bandwidth allocation.

Re: FCC aims to reinstate net neutrality after us Democrats gain control of panel

#176
This is good, but it's so obvious this was a super low priority thing for the Democrats. It's been almost three years since they took power, and they let the FCC sit in an Ajit Pai-inspired limbo for most of that time. They hit a roadblock and just stopped for years instead of adapting.

Re: FCC aims to reinstate net neutrality after us Democrats gain control of panel

#177
post #75

I’m pro net neutrality AFAIK. BUT We owe it to ourselves to go and look at all the fearmongering they were putting out about ending net neutrality and figuring out why it didn’t come to pass. And hopefully learning from that for future policy debates.

It’s only been a few years. I don’t think we owe our selves to call all experiments at such a short time frame. People are acting like this is some chemical reaction they should be able to observe in an afternoon instead of something slow and pernicious like large American businesses when they know they are being watched. Edit: also several states have net neutrality laws on the books, so if you are typing this from…

Can we apply the same argument of time and precedence? Machine guns were legal for new purchase in the USA from their invention in 1892 to 1986. That's 94 years of precedent so, if a couple years of "no chemical reaction" is the gauge, I bet we could roll into and back on a lot of things, right?

Re: FCC aims to reinstate net neutrality after us Democrats gain control of panel

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mobile providers are a different beast because there’s a limit on radio spectrum. Throttling is necessary.

No, it's not. Cutting back each user's allotment temporarily during times of congestion is necessary, but otherwise there's no technical reason to throttle, let alone choose one particular kind of app. If radio spectrum is so scarce, how are Mobile and Verizon selling unlimited 5g home internet service?

I think a lot of those home 5G services are using the higher frequency 5G bands, which are often not great for portable devices.

Re: FCC aims to reinstate net neutrality after us Democrats gain control of panel

#179
post #75

I’m pro net neutrality AFAIK. BUT We owe it to ourselves to go and look at all the fearmongering they were putting out about ending net neutrality and figuring out why it didn’t come to pass. And hopefully learning from that for future policy debates.

[flagged]

Does no one else remember Reddit and Google running dial-up looking gifs of their logos to show how evil the ending of NN would be? Yea... we got a worse internet alright but it definitely wasn't because images load slowly.

Re: FCC aims to reinstate net neutrality after us Democrats gain control of panel

#180

I believe it's supposed to be "U.S. Democrats", not "us Democrats".

On this site, I'm not sure it makes much of a difference. Shockingly to me, someone else in this thread writes how this is a conservative site... Well that guy must have a wildly different perspective from me!
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