291–300 of 1001 posts
It is time to make the Internet a utility. Unfortunately, it wont happen until we get Democrats back into the Senate and House.
Democrats had a chance to when they controlled both, and they didn't. This problem may not be as partisan as you think..
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> our democracy isn't working properly Democracy doesn't work through public declarations, it works through elections. One year ago, the states chose Donald Trump as president, knowing they he would end Net Neutrality [1]. If a population wants to send a different message, they must do it in the next election [2]. [1] https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/53260835850816716... [2] https://swingleft.org/
> One year ago, the states chose Donald Trump as president, knowing they he would end Net Neutrality More charitably, they chose Donald Trump on the suspicion that he would do "better" than Hillary Clinton on: abortion, immigration, the economy, leading in "the culture wars", and maybe a few other issues. Net neutrality was a litmus test for basically nobody.
At that time, sure. Time will tell whether electing an extremist candidate was a good idea or not.
Losing in deep red Alabama isn't a good sign.
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It's funny, the FCC's mandate isn't to poll the public and do whatever most of them want. Strange how people seem to think it's a numbers game, at least when they feel the numbers are on their side
The government exists for and by the people. Funny how fascists seem to forget this.
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It's funny, the FCC's mandate isn't to poll the public and do whatever most of them want. Strange how people seem to think it's a numbers game, at least when they feel the numbers are on their side
Logician and Philosopher Raymond Smullyan had a story about this in one of his books. He had gone on a trip with a woman with a little girl. The adults wanted to eat at colorful local cafes, while the girl wanted to eat at McDonalds. He suggested that they vote, and the little girl replied, "That's no fair. I'd lose!" Our republic isn't designed just to do what the people want. It's intentionally designed so that goo…
Key phrase. There is zero evidence that repealing Net Neutrality is anywhere close to the public interest.
This wouldn't be a problem if ISP's weren't de facto monopolies. If there was competition in this space, then there would be incentive to improve the infrastructure and Internet speeds. However, ISP's kill competition by making legal arrangements with local governments to only do business with them, and by cutting competitors' cables. Since we have no way to guarantee reasonable speeds to small time websites now, we…
The "last mile" is a utility, and by its very nature will always result in monopolistic control. It is impractical and irrational to wire up a home to multiple ISPs with their own fiber channels. Each channel could cost tens of thousands to install. Instead the "last mile" should be a non-profit funded by ISPs who lease the channels. The non-profit is responsible for installing the "last mile," upgrading it, and repa…
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Except it was a disaster. The only reason the rule got put into place was because Verizon was found to be throttling Netflix. There's no reason to suspect they won't go back to it as soon as they can.
> The only reason the rule got put into place was because Verizon was found to be throttling Netflix. No that's inaccurate. Title II reclassification happened in 2015. Verizon Netflix "throttling" (controversial what actually happened there) happened in 2017.
If you voted for Trump, this one's on you.
You say this as if Hillary would have been so much better.. No, this ones on all the people who continue to stick their head in the sand and try to blame the other team.
2 democrats voted against repealing NN. If we had 3 D's in the FCC, if we had Hillary, you would have seen the opposite result.
Please stop peddling this "there's no difference" narrative. It's clearly untrue in this case. Otherwise, why would the split be on party lines? Republicans voted to repeal NN, not democrats.
The voters elected a Republican government. That a Republican-led FCC would err on the side of under-regulating telecommunications companies is about the least surprising outcome you can imagine. Anybody who told you that lobbying the FCC was going to make a difference here was, whether they meant to or not, selling a bill of goods. As someone who respects but mostly profoundly disagrees with principled Republican la…
That is not why this is shocking. This proceeding is shocking because the legal basis for this change is dependent on a false statements about the technology involved. It goes beyond just, "Republicans prefer deregulation," or, "Republicans favor market-based approaches." There is plenty of room and a general need for debates about what policy approaches are best, but there is no room for debate about the answer to technical questions.
Engineers and researchers submitted hundreds of comments to the FCC trying to correct the falsehoods presented in the NPRM. The FCC did not simply ignore those comments. The draft rules specifically cite those comments and totally dismiss them as "not persuasive." Only commentary from ISPs was "persuasive" in this proceeding, and the ISPs omitted facts that were inconvenient for them (the point of public commentary is in part to fill in the omissions that lobbyists would obviously make).
Sorry, but I do not buy the "what do you expect from Republicans" argument. I expect Republicans to be pro-markets, even pro-big-business; I expect Republicans to favor deregulation. It is not acceptable to pursue that agenda by ignoring expert answers to technical questions, regardless of party affiliation. It is one thing to interpret facts -- for example, the draft rules interpret the fact that edge services can be accessed via ISP networks as ISPs providing a capability to their customers, which is bizarre but within the bounds as far as policy debates go. To simply dismiss facts that are being presented to you by experts, when you have a legal obligation to receive and consider such facts, is another matter entirely.
Yes, I expect the party of deregulation to base its policy goals on facts, as interpreted through the lens of a pro-business/pro-markets approach, and not some convenient fantasy.
This wouldn't be a problem if ISP's weren't de facto monopolies. If there was competition in this space, then there would be incentive to improve the infrastructure and Internet speeds. However, ISP's kill competition by making legal arrangements with local governments to only do business with them, and by cutting competitors' cables. Since we have no way to guarantee reasonable speeds to small time websites now, we…
So let's play out the worse case - Comcast, AT&T etc wait out the shitstorm and then start throttling traffic and packaging the internet, releasing cable-esque "plans."
Is it feasible to just start running our own fiber to hubs? I want to learn more about the internet and what it would take to bypass the ISPs. Can I do this? Do I need to be incorporated to do it? What would it take to start a new ISP with the premise "unthrottled, unmonitored traffic, charged by the gigabyte - an internet utility service"?
As a private citizen, can I purchase a bunch of land between me and, I dunno, a DNS node or whatever and just lay a super long fiber cable straight to it? Who do I have to pay at the node to get to "plug into" it or whatever?
Hmm. I should see if there's some "How the Internet Works: for Dummies" book.