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

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271–280 of 302 posts

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

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? How would regulation that “you must not throttle” lead to regulation for “you just throttle”? That makes no sense.

The most typical way this is done is through selective enforcement. You create rules that most of anybody can be argued to be breaking, but only enforce it for individuals or organizations that you have an issue with. With net neutrality it's pretty easy to see how this would happen. The previous net neutrality rules, under Tom Wheeler, included a carveout for nearly all rules under anything that could be justified a…

this is like arguing against speeding tickets because it gives cops too much discretion to enforce it and drives them to corruption.

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

#272
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That didn't happen here, but that is an actual advertisement from a Portuguese ISP, not just some sensationalized propaganda.

So, you are saying some unverified tiny ISP bad marketing decision in Portugal in 2015 or earlier (that image is old) should be used to direct policy for the entire united states regardless of the reality of the actual practices? That is exactly what sensationalized propaganda looks like in this case. You are doing it right now.

To say that this thing that actually happened didn't actually happen would also be propaganda. Every statement has bias. I'm just pointing out that this isn't a joke image, it's a real image.

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

#273
post #209
post #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.

> 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. There ought to be a name for this fallacy, like "alternating dictatorship single color lump-government." Pretty much from day-one the Biden administration was trying to get a new FCC member to the understaffed commission, however with the slimmest possible 51-49 Senate majority it only t…

Correction: "From day-one" is inaccurate, while there may have been informal legislator negotiations before, the formal nomination process for the seat vacated by Ajit Pai started in 10-2021 rather than 01-2021.

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

#274

You can always trust politicians to do the exact opposite of their claim. For example: inflation reduction act, affordable health care act, voting rights act 2023. The propaganda is strong with net neutrality. It is just another play for more government control over information.

Would you mind explaining specifically how the FCC's intention to add net neutrality rules again (actually Chairwoman Rosenworcel's intention, and dubious in mettle [1]) would give the government "control over information"? Additionally, would you mind describing what you mean by "government control over information"?

A required condition of net neutrality is that the ISPs be considered common carriers once again. Common carriers are an exception to the legal paradigm of compelled speech. So the most you can say is that the government would be disallowing the ISPs from engaging in money-motivated censorship. If that falls under your idea of "government control over information" then you would be correct (but only pointlessly correct in my opinion).

[1] https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/14/finally-close-to-having-...

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

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do mess with your data connection though[0]. For instance, they automatically downgrade video and appear to compress images "on your behalf"[0] regardless of what plan you're on. I'm somewhat dubious on the idea that their Cricket More plan is actually unlimited, but I'm pressed for time and can't read their more dense terms of service around the plan, but I'm assuming they have a congestion clause buried in the…

I know how they do that with video, but how do they extra compress images when most traffic is https? It works with video because all video sites automatically adjust quality based on throughput so they just figure out when you’re streaming video and then throttle. But most websites don’t automatically change image quality based on throughput and pages load more quickly and are harder to shape…

No idea, however from the linked page, they say they do:

>Cricket compresses all images that are embedded in web pages in either of two industry standard formats (JPEG and GIF), regardless of the source or content of the web page or the application used to view it. Cricket strives to compress web page images to provide a high quality user experience where the average consumer should not notice a difference between the source image and the compressed image.

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

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yeah, but generally network costs grow with n^2 the number of users.

What do you mean by network costs?

Fewer cell towers per user is surely cheaper assuming each user is consuming the same amount of content.

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

#277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but generally network costs grow with n^2 the number of users.

What do you mean by network costs? Fewer cell towers per user is surely cheaper assuming each user is consuming the same amount of content.

Error correction, packet broadcasting per node, dynamic load rebalancing... the real world costs of any network increase proportional to the square of the nodes.

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

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't it vastly more important to ensure free speech on the internet than the speed of your netflix stream If they can slow down your Netflix stream, they can also impair others' access to your self-hosted blog. I can't think of a more direct, fundamental threat to free speech than that. It's the same as the power company turning off service to your printing press.

Who's "they"? Every ISP collaborating together to censor specific websites? Highly doubt that ever happens. Plus, companies like Starlink have made that practically impossible. Add in 5g internet options and I can't see how that could be practical. All of that has been added in the past 3-5 years too.

Then contrary to what you originally claimed, there's no free speech issues on the internet right now,

Unless you're talking about having your "free speech" on whatever site or service you want. That's not free speech. It's more like communism.

> Highly doubt that ever happens

It would be a serious free speech violation. Best to make it illegal so it never does. If you're censored on literally all social media you can still host your own website or IRC server. If ISPs start censoring you it's game over.

Even one ISP slowing down specific websites by a bit would be very bad. Slowness tends to decrease traffic, and people would almost never notice. And then add in the fact that it's so difficult to change ISPs: spend an hour on the phone with the cancellation department, schedule an installation for the new service yada yada yada.

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

#279
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that remotely the same thing? The infographic above and others clearly claim that ISPs will be blocking services then requiring you to pay for them separately. Exempting services from data caps is not against net neutrality, and for example has been regular practice all across Europe (which has "net neutrality"). Isn't it just shifting the goal posts after the original claims of NN campaigners were discredited…

Netflix pays their upstream ISP to saturate the link they pay for. Why should Verizon, Comcast and others demand payment from Netflix? They are connecting customers to the internet, and should be peered to IXs that can feed what their customers need. Netflix even offers to put caches on the ISPs network to lighten the burden on their IX uplink. It will get untenable if every random ISP charges each content provider.

That's not what happened. Netflix pays their bandwidth middleman, and their bandwidth middleman subsequently refused to pay for upgrades for the massive usage of their customer.

Netflix should have either demanded their middleman pay, moved to a different middleman, or offered to sign an agreement with the companies directly.

Let's put it another way. Let's say Netflix's bandwidth middleman hosts both Netflix and a critical telehealth operator. Should Verizon shake down or throttle the telehealth service, potentially putting health at risk, in order to prop up entertainment content streams for a deadbeat company? Of course only Netflix gets throttled, they're degrading the rest of the internet and not paying for upgrades.

Netflix being able to degrade the internet for other services traversing the same lines while refusing to pay (again, industry standard) is greed.

>Netflix even offers to put caches on the ISPs network

We don't want to pay, but give us free rack space to solve this problem?

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

#280
post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true. FCC net neutrality rules apply to mobile carriers. So do the ones in California Europe India and Canada. There is leewway for a reasonable ment, but those measures can only be used temporarily during times of congestion and have to be as application agnostic as possible

If that is the case, then 100% of cell carriers are in violation of the law. If you know of a counterexample I'd like to hear it. In particular, California network neutrality says they can't discriminate against services or devices. Complying with the law would imply that any 5G plan could work with any 5G device, so people could use their $10/month tablet add on plans for home broadband and laptops / tethering. Simi…

Oh I definitely agree companies are in violation of the law.

It's enforced by the California AG, and you can complain to them directly.

I didn't know about the AT&T business plan limitation. If it's a mass plan, that's a violation. Enterprise plans are largely exempted.

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