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FCC rescinds claim that AT&T and Verizon violated net neutrality

arstechnica.com

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Re: FCC rescinds claim that AT&T and Verizon violated net neutrality

#21

Post by balabaster »

tylerflick wrote: post #18
balabaster wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps someone needs to organize a movement of large populations of progressive future thinking utopian philosophers moving to different states to more effectively rig elections in the way of a more enlightened future. Alas, I don't think there are enough of these types to actually effectively hack elections like that.

More enlightened for who? I'm not disagreeing with you about Net Neutrality, but to assume your opinion is enlightened or progressive for a people you've never met is very narcissistic.

Narcissism would imply that my perspective personally is affected by the outcome and that I believe my opinion is superior to everyone elses, which I don't.

I'm talking about for the people in general. Net Neutrality within the U.S. has absolutely no bearing on me personally as I'm neither a U.S. citizen, nor a resident. I'm merely opining because I am interested in the well-being of my fellow humans... in this instance, Americans and residents affected by internet service providers looking to dishonestly gouge their customers.

I care about you guys and your struggles, I care when I see people being taken advantage of, I care about the erosion of your constitutional rights, I care when I see you having to struggle to have your voices heard by a system that doesn't give a fuck about you except for how quickly they can part you from your money. I care because I see your struggles every day, I listen to your complaints, I follow your news, I read and I watch. I speak from a place of wanting to fight your causes. I live on the internet and it's hard to stand by and watch your internet gradually being taken away and used to exploit you.

So to assume I'm narcissistic without knowing anything about my background or my motives for comment is slightly er... I don't even have a word to finish that sentence.

Re: FCC rescinds claim that AT&T and Verizon violated net neutrality

#22

Post by megiddo »

Pai is a very strange character.

He was general counsel for Verizon, which is typical for regulatory capture stooges as far as career choices go, but worked for Jenner & Block, who's primary public record is heavily left-leaning. He's an Obama appointee, but on the recommendation of McConnell.

My guess is that Jenner & Block probably fronts a lot of left-leaning legal cases outside of their bread & butter, which is telco, giving them a good face across the board with Congress. Meanwhile, his prior appointment to the FCC was almost certainly a horse trade between McConnell and Obama.

Pai has been more or less a telco puppet for the last 15 years in one role or another.

The interesting thing about this is that regulatory capture is generally in support of further regulation rather than against. This implies that net neutrality is actually either a grass-roots regulation (highly unlikely), or there is an inversion of concern over the general case. My guess is that the monopoly positions that telcos hold has inverted the normal regulatory capture process at the FCC, and that the primary consumers of the content (Amazon, Netflix, etc) are very shrewd operators who can see through regulatory rhetoric.

Re: FCC rescinds claim that AT&T and Verizon violated net neutrality

#25

Post by gcb0 »

chimeracoder wrote: post #12
giarc wrote: post #3

>AT&T and Verizon allow their own video services (DirecTV and Go90, respectively) to stream on their mobile networks without counting against customers' data caps, while charging other video providers for the same data cap exemptions. Isn't that the anti definition of net neutrality?

> Isn't that the anti definition of net neutrality? Yes, zero-rating is a direct affront to net neutrality: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/zero-rating-what-it-is... But I don't think that we're going to see many successes in net neutrality at the federal level anytime soon - the fight really has to be carried out at the state level.

...and still absolutely nobody think about moving companies. We already have number portability.

Re: FCC rescinds claim that AT&T and Verizon violated net neutrality

#26

Post by criley2 »

gcb0 wrote: post #25
chimeracoder wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't that the anti definition of net neutrality? Yes, zero-rating is a direct affront to net neutrality: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/zero-rating-what-it-is... But I don't think that we're going to see many successes in net neutrality at the federal level anytime soon - the fight really has to be carried out at the state level.

...and still absolutely nobody think about moving companies. We already have number portability.

...Moving companies?

Tmobile, Verizon, AT&T and Sprint uses 0 rating.

That's the entirety of the American wireless infrastructure.

It is literally impossible to use 4g wireless communication in America without patronizing directly or indirectly a 0 rating neutrality violator.

Re: FCC rescinds claim that AT&T and Verizon violated net neutrality

#27

Post by ensignavenger »

byuu wrote: post #10
equalarrow wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only matters - voting in the presidential elections - in the red states. If you're a liberal, progressive, futurist, etc, and you're living in states like CA or NY or OR, then statistically speaking, those states are pretty much gonna go democrat regardless. So your vote counts 'less' there. What is needed is a bunch of these people to move to swing states where the vote really matters. Places like OH, FL, etc.…

The simple solution is actual democracy: one person, one vote. Whoever wins the popular vote wins the White House. Now if only we had a president in office who lamented what a travesty the electoral college was, and how it should be done away with ...

It really doesn't matter very much what opinion the President has of the electoral college, the President doesn't have much say in the matter. Perhaps the President could use their position to push for change, but that would be the extent of it.

Re: FCC rescinds claim that AT&T and Verizon violated net neutrality

#28

Post by virmundi »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #11

Is there any way, as a citizen and consumer, to stop Pai? Or get him fired from FCC? Will writing Congress help?

Nope. Not unless you can show that he did something a)unethical, b) immoral or c) illegal. Since he gets to define legality through what the FCC dictates, within reason, he can't really violate c on a policy level. If you got a and/or b, please let us know. You can even leak that information.

In general Congress has to pass a law declaring the ISPs utilities. Then net neutrality is a good thing. The problem is that none of the congress (obviously a generalization) really care about the topic. It appears to be too much for them to understand that AT&T made the claim that bandwidth over the wireless is limited. They went so far as to say that caps were needed. Now AT&T has changed it argument, "Our bandwidth is too limited for our users to use services from providers that we haven't made a peering deal with." Congress can't understand that peering or not, wireless spectrum is limited. Too complex.

If you write your representatives, you might need to use really basic language. Think Alan Shore explaining the pharmaceutical case to Denny.

edit: grammar.

Re: FCC rescinds claim that AT&T and Verizon violated net neutrality

#29

Post by virmundi »

mr_spothawk wrote: post #7

so, I'm still in favor of NOT Net Neutrality. Specifically, I think the system is rigged through the telecommunications act, but that the FCCs process for "fixing" it with NetNute was an attempted end run around bad legislation from decades ago. Hopefully this will promote self-organizing mesh providers. There is (or will be) money to be made in cheap, fast, unfiltered internet.

How are you laying the infrastructure, microwave transmitters or otherwise?

Re: FCC rescinds claim that AT&T and Verizon violated net neutrality

#30

Post by [deleted] »

gcb0 wrote: post #25
chimeracoder wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't that the anti definition of net neutrality? Yes, zero-rating is a direct affront to net neutrality: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/zero-rating-what-it-is... But I don't think that we're going to see many successes in net neutrality at the federal level anytime soon - the fight really has to be carried out at the state level.

...and still absolutely nobody think about moving companies. We already have number portability.

[deleted]
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