FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote • Hacker News Board

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#181

Post by api » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 7:19 PM UTC

chetanahuja wrote: post #76

Wow.. This thread has turned into an astro-turfing campaign for the anti-NN advocates. The main gist of the the new regulations is the classify broadband access as a utility under Title II of Communications act. This has long been generally agreed upon by reasonable people as a good thing... and a necessary thing seeing how there's virtually no competition in broadband access for most people in the US. Reading commen…

This is America, where infrastructure is communism. I mean if we provide good infrastructure, pretty soon we'll be sending people to gulags or something like they do in Europe and Canada.

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#182

Post by daughart » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 7:19 PM UTC

droopybuns wrote: post #168

chetanahuja wrote: post #76

Wow.. This thread has turned into an astro-turfing campaign for the anti-NN advocates. The main gist of the the new regulations is the classify broadband access as a utility under Title II of Communications act. This has long been generally agreed upon by reasonable people as a good thing... and a necessary thing seeing how there's virtually no competition in broadband access for most people in the US. Reading commen…

I have looked hard at the issues & I'm not on any campaign. Paid prioritization is not a bad thing. Blocking websites is. There is a whole nascent standard called LTE direct that suddenly becomes pointless if you can't distinquish traffic priorities. There are innovations that are being cut out of the picture for entirely new m2x flows & peer to peer flows because of the desire to remove paid prioritization. It is no…

At what point does "prioritization" effectively become blocking? People navigate away from websites that take a long time to load or have advertisements.

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#183

Post by cratermoon » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 7:19 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #22

paulhauggis wrote: post #2

What scares me is that there are 700 regulations (that we haven't even seen) that got passed. I wouldn't sign a contract without reading it (and having the person on the other side telling me all of the reasons why I should), and neither should you. But apparently, the general population (and many here) will. I watched the entire live broadcast and the pros played only on emotion (safety, helping out the disadvantage…

> What scares me is that there are 700 regulations (that we haven't even seen) that got passed. Regulatory orders aren't generally published before being approved by the initiating authority (preliminary notices that are subject to revision before being approved are published when those are approved by the authority, as was the case with the NPRM on this issue published last year. The final decision based on the NPRM…

That spin, "Obama's secret plan to control the Internet!" has been bouncing around the right-wing echo chambers in more or less blunt forms since the FCC first proposed the rules.

The spin doctors consistently fail to mention your point: the new rules went through the exact same process as all the previous rule-making.

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#184

Post by CzechsMix » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 7:19 PM UTC

stellar678 wrote: post #146

CzechsMix wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a little Ad hom for my taste. If he's making bad points, attack and refute those. Not him.

Given the accusation that this thread is full of astroturfing, the account karma and age of posters seem like very relevant information.

My what a wonderful ivory tower you must live in. I just think it's weak. If being anti-NN is so incredibly stupid, shouldn't refuting the points they make be trivial? why not just do it, and safe yourself the trouble of being accused of sitting one-step up on the debate pyramid from "Name-calling"?

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#185

Post by wlesieutre » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 7:19 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #119

chetanahuja wrote: post #76

Wow.. This thread has turned into an astro-turfing campaign for the anti-NN advocates. The main gist of the the new regulations is the classify broadband access as a utility under Title II of Communications act. This has long been generally agreed upon by reasonable people as a good thing... and a necessary thing seeing how there's virtually no competition in broadband access for most people in the US. Reading commen…

I don't believe I have enough information to conclude that classifying broadband as a Title II utility will be a good thing. My general impression is that more and stricter regulations in an industry is usually (though not always) a bad thing for consumers in that industry, so while I'm not vehemently against this NN bill, I certainly am not excited or optimistic. I consider my views reasonable, although I guess an u…

> My general impression is that more and stricter regulations in an industry is usually (though not always) a bad thing for consumers in that industry, so while I'm not vehemently against this NN bill, I certainly am not excited or optimistic.

I would say that's more strongly the case in competitive industries where there's some consumer choice in play to keep bad companies in check. But there are very few people who choose Comcast from between multiple broadband providers. And then they shot themselves in the foot in the public discourse with their constant stream of customer abuse and terrible support stories.

I'd say I'm cautiously optimistic about this, but I should read up more on what parts of Title II are being applied to what parts of the network here.

In particular, does this have any effect on Comcast saying "Netflix needs to pay us or we won't install sufficient peering to meet our customers' demand for Netflix connections"?

Having a second ISP choice where Netflix works properly would fix that pretty quickly, but I'm not clear on whether Title II does. But the FCC also just overruled state laws blocking municipal broadband networks, so that's going to be another option to keep an eye on.

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#186

Post by rayiner » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 7:20 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #165

rayiner wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This has long been generally agreed upon by reasonable people as a good thing. This is revisionist history. Up until very recently, Title II was the "nuclear option."[1] There's plenty of people who are pro-net neutrality who were skeptical of Title II. That's why they originally threw their support behind the FCC's last attempt at net neutrality, which tried to impose neutrality without reclassification. The EFF o…

> This is revisionist history. Up until very recently, everyone considered Title II the "nuclear option." That is revisionist history. From the outset of the NN debate, a large subset of the pro-NN crowd has pushed for Title II, and this increased after the court made clear that the critical elements of net neutrality could not be enforced by regulation, without substantial gaps, except under Title II. It is simply n…

Fair enough, see edit.

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#187

Post by warfangle » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 7:20 PM UTC

innguest wrote: post #80

warfangle wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the FCC loves to censor things like television, and it wouldn't be insane to think they would consider doing the same with the internet Unfortunately, this is kind of a red herring. There are a few places in the telecommunications act that require the FCC to fine for indecency/obscene material. Cable operators themselves, for example, are not responsible for channels that display obscene material - the original tra…

> Unfortunately, this is kind of a red herring. There are a few places in the telecommunications act that require the FCC to fine for indecency/obscene material. That is the true red herring we hear over and over again. Don't worry about censorship, you can still say indecent/obscene things... if you happen to have been awarded the broadcasting license . Sir, or Ma'am, please understand. The censorship problem we ant…

> not being able to get a license in the first place.

Sure! You should totally be allowed to throw up a transmitter and blast white noise through fifty percent of the radio frequencies at 50 kilowatts of power! And so what if the car next to you on the highway has a transmitter that interferes with your radio tuned to the classical station by blasting dubstep. FREEDOM

The problem is, that's all covered under Title III. Title III is very specifically about radio broadcasting.

And has nothing. At all. To do. With Title II.

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#188

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 7:21 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #119

chetanahuja wrote: post #76

Wow.. This thread has turned into an astro-turfing campaign for the anti-NN advocates. The main gist of the the new regulations is the classify broadband access as a utility under Title II of Communications act. This has long been generally agreed upon by reasonable people as a good thing... and a necessary thing seeing how there's virtually no competition in broadband access for most people in the US. Reading commen…

I don't believe I have enough information to conclude that classifying broadband as a Title II utility will be a good thing. My general impression is that more and stricter regulations in an industry is usually (though not always) a bad thing for consumers in that industry, so while I'm not vehemently against this NN bill, I certainly am not excited or optimistic. I consider my views reasonable, although I guess an u…

[deleted]

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#189

Post by covzzire » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 7:21 PM UTC

badsock wrote: post #122

travie7273 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even Eric Schmidt told Obama it was a bad idea. IBM, Intel, and Cisco are against it. My posts were shadow banned on HN for being against these regulations. It's odd that people like you can't fathom that there are two sides to this issue.

Intel, Cisco, and IBM all sell deep packet inspection products. They have a material interest in not seeing NN go through.

The FCC"s plan isn't NN. It's a gigantic steaming pile of regulations that's ostensibly designed to implement NN. So far, any attempts at public debate gets reduced to emotional screeches and partisanship without any real meat to anything.

We're doomed. Maybe not today, tomorrow or next year, but censorship as you fear it is coming and you have yourselves to blame.

Re: FCC Passes Strict Net Neutrality Regulations on 3-2 Vote

#190

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Feb 26, 2015, 7:21 PM UTC

zxcvcxz wrote: post #104

What I'm worried about is that the internet could become like radio, requiring anyone who wants to broadcast (hook up a server) to obtain a license to do so. All people have the right to connect as many devices as they want to the internet, and connect their own server(s) on their own network to the public internet, and allow others to use their servers for any and all purposes including to connect to the internet. P…

> What I'm worried about is that the internet could become like radio, requiring anyone who wants to broadcast (hook up a server) to obtain a license to do so.

Both the regulatory rules and the authorizing statute behind that requirement are related to broadcast, and have nothing to do with Tite II classification; and not even all radio requires that (there is unlicensed spectrum.) So, while that's a fine thing to worry about, its not really related to the FCC action classifying retail broadband as a Title II telecommunication service.