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FCC Chairman: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality

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Re: FCC Chairman: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality

#291
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a federal/state/local government declares something illegal, they can shut it down within their jurisdiction. There is no "I'm on the internet so you can't enforce laws" get out of jail free card.

Well, the Uber site isn't distributing illegal content, so should the Uber site be shutdown or should they just be going after Uber via the courts (where a judge could order Uber to suspend operations)? I was stating that you could see city government trying to get the Uber site blocked to local ISP customers as a way to side-step the court system.

Since regulation would apply to mobile data, traffic to the Uber app could be blocked.

Re: FCC Chairman: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality

#292
post #4

No last mile unbundling: does it mean that every operator has to deploy its own cable from street to home?

Last mile unbundling destroys any incentive to invest in network deployment. Worse, the way title II is written, the FCC can only unbundle the local telephone company. So the cable network that provide broadcand service to most Americans can't be unbundled at all. Last mile unbundling only works when you have a very strictly regulated monopoly providing the network.

We have last mile unbundling -- if my understanding of the term is correct -- for wired broadband where I live (Toronto area, Canada), and speeds have still been getting progressively faster.

Having said that, it seems like a lot of people here still stick to the big named carriers like Rogers and Bell because of inertia, comfort-levels with service or lack of awareness of third party providers. The cost savings (even with some recent rate increases) of using third party internet access over cable or phone line here are actually quite substantial when you factor in the liberal bandwidth caps you get with TPIA providers.

Re: FCC Chairman: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality

#293
post #45

I violated Responsible Reading Of The Internet Rule #1 and accidentally looked at the comments. I am having a hard time reconciling the vehement anti-net-neutrality anti-government hair-on-fire screaming there with the reasoned discussion and general attitude here---I would have thought the majority of readers of Wired would be of similar mind to HN readers.

Okay, I'm going to go against the grain here and ask why there's so many people avoiding the comments section, or even suggesting installing comment-hiding browser extensions. Do you folks always avoid the comments section? Obviously not, because you're here :) and the idea that this is such a generalized "Internet Rule" is contradictory to being here. If you're disgusted by other people's abrasive comments (on Wired…

HN is a community. A wired article is a google result.

As such, those comments are liable to attract a wider variety of people, some of whom are crazy, some of whom are trolling, some of whom are trying to push some arbitrary agenda. Here, there are rules and a culture that (it seems to me) rewards interesting conversations.

Plus, most random commenters are anonymous, whereas most people on HN are pseudonymous. I consider what I write here much more strongly than what I write on reddit, or 4chan.

Re: FCC Chairman: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source that Canada has mandatory line-sharing for cable (not just DSL)?

It does not. Canada has mandatory line-sharing only for "phone" companies - i.e., DSL. This has been a boon for small-time ISPs but a huge thorn in the side of phone companies like Bell and Telus, who are forced to compete with cable giants that are not playing under the same rules.

That's funny, because I'm using a third party internet provider over Rogers cable -- and I have no cable TV account. I can't imagine Rogers choosing to allow Teksavvy access to their last mile, since they could be charging me a LOT more than what I'm paying now (well, maybe not, I'd just get a dry loop DSL account instead).

Re: FCC Chairman: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality

#295

The internet wouldn’t have emerged as it did, for instance, if the FCC hadn’t mandated open access for network equipment in the late 1960s. Before then, AT&T prohibited anyone from attaching non-AT&T equipment to the network. By the 1960s AT&T was a well-established government-sanctioned monopoly [0]. It's a bold claim that says we wouldn't have gotten an internet without FCC regulation of AT&T. An easier conclusion…

ISPs, especially Comcast and Verizon, are big players in Washington, known for throwing their money and influence around. If their businesses are reclassified under Title II, they can be expected to squeeze the resulting rules and regulations until they scream for mercy. It's fine to praise Wheeler's plan, as do some net neutrality fans, for aiming to "regulate the internet like a utility." But it's worth noting that utilities have long learned how to run rings around their regulators.

Re: FCC Chairman: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality

#296
> The proposal I present to the commission will ensure the internet remains open, now and in the future, for all Americans.

I really wish they would acknowledge that this type of decision isn't just "for Americans". Pretty much the entire world was watching to see how they were going to handle it.

Re: FCC Chairman: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality

#297
I read this as beneficial to the wireless data carriers. Toward the bottom:

  "there will be no rate regulation, no tariffs, no last-mile unbundling"
Meaning no more MVNOs and no more competition other than the "big 4". Read the arstech article here: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/we-dont-need-net-... to see how unbundling would have been best for the consumer; without it, looks like the wireless co's win big actually.

Re: FCC Chairman: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality

#298
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really impressed with Wheeler. When he was nominated, all the news was about how he was a lobbyist for the cable companies, and it was a perfect example of cronyism. But he's really been knocking it out of the park. Aggressive on net neutrality, redefining broadband, trying to restore municipal Internet. I'm very glad to have been wrong about my initial impressions.

I don't know Wheeler, but don't understand why having been a lobbyist (or aspiring to be one again) would make him more "friendly" to that industry: The tougher he is on them, the more they should eventually be willing to pay him to switch sides again, right?

If he did so, he'd seem more like a greedy opportunist rather than someone genuinely interested in pushing the industry's goals.

Re: FCC Chairman: This Is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality

#300
post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He got a 3/2 split on the redefinition of broadband with one of the yeas publicly admitting that she would have rather seen 100Mbit as the threshold. It stands to reason that this will pass too with the current committee makeup. If the GOP wins 2016, however, the future may not be so bright once they install their pro-business people and fix all of this "Socialist" claptrap.

Good. Why people want the government's hand's deeper in the internet than now is beyond me. Look at mobile data (exempt from title II) versus "broadband"/cable speeds. Wheeler actually points to the success of title II on "mobile" while ignoring the fact that it only applied to voice. Meanwhile, all the relevant growth and innovation occurred in data. I have to say I'ld like to see the "socialist claptrap", feel-good…

>Wheeler actually points to the success of title II on "mobile" while ignoring the fact that it only applied to voice. Meanwhile, all the relevant growth and innovation occurred in data.

Only voice and SMS mattered until 2007(iPhone launch). Title II seemed to work pretty well until then.

>Look at mobile data (exempt from title II) versus "broadband"/cable speeds.

The difference in infrastructure costs makes those two incomparable.

Look, you just suffer under a reality distortion field.

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