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U.S. FCC chairman plans fast-track repeal of net neutrality: sources

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. FCC chairman plans fast-track repeal of net neutrality: sources

#31

Post by kablaa »

wyager wrote: post #25

This is a somewhat unpopular opinion on HN, but I think net neutrality is only a mediocre local optimum. We can do much better without it. Look at Denmark; they top the global ITU ITC ranking for internet service, and how do they do it? By totally deregulating ISPs while setting government policy to allow for competition (instead of trying to force ISPs to follow some arbitrary notion of good behavior in the abject l…

>encourage actual ISP competition

I don't know about you but in my town ISP competition is practically nonexistent. Usually it's a choice between Comcast and maybe one other local ISP. It's practically a monopoly right now, which is why treating internet as a utility and treating huge ISPs like Comcast as a "government regulated monopoly" makes sense.

This would be just like what we already have with our local power companies. It's technically a monopoly, but it's heavily regulated so that they can't raise prices on your electricity for no reason. It's also very easy to argue that internet is every bit as much of a necessity as power or water is these days.

Re: U.S. FCC chairman plans fast-track repeal of net neutrality: sources

#32

Post by ac29 »

liquidise wrote: post #12
ajross wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does encryption solve the problem of Verizon squeezing Netflix to degrade its service in favor of its own offerings? Net neutrality isn't about consumer surveillance (which is a problem too, just a different one). It's about access to markets and the ability to choose the services you use on the internet.

I'm not saying encryption is the solution. The solution to internet neutrality and user privacy may be something entirely different. Maybe it is mesh networks of an open source wifi solution. I'm not an expert in networking, but it doesn't take much to understand the policy-first approach is fundamentally flawed.

>I'm not an expert in networking, but it doesn't take much to understand the policy-first approach is fundamentally flawed.

Why is policy first flawed? An analogy:

Imagine if your county sold the rights to build and maintain (or not maintain) all the roads, highways, and public transportation in your county to Car Company X. Vehicles from competitors Y and Z were then forced to pay tolls.

If government policy isn't the solution this, what is? "The free market" is not the answer.

Bad car analogies aside, "lets just build our own internet, with WiFi meshes and encryption or something" isn't the answer to internet service either.

Re: U.S. FCC chairman plans fast-track repeal of net neutrality: sources

#33

Post by saboot »

MS_Buys_Upvotes wrote: post #29
kablaa wrote: post #11

It's amazing how much money influences these politicians. I would be amazed if any of the people who voted for this bill even fully understand what it is.

It had nothing to do with money. Pai is a former Verizon lawyer. He did exactly as he was expected to do.

Tom Wheeler was a lobbyist for the Telecom industry..

Re: U.S. FCC chairman plans fast-track repeal of net neutrality: sources

#34

Post by shostack »

wyager wrote: post #25

This is a somewhat unpopular opinion on HN, but I think net neutrality is only a mediocre local optimum. We can do much better without it. Look at Denmark; they top the global ITU ITC ranking for internet service, and how do they do it? By totally deregulating ISPs while setting government policy to allow for competition (instead of trying to force ISPs to follow some arbitrary notion of good behavior in the abject l…

This might work if we had government policy allowing for competition. Instead we prop up existing monopolies and prevent competition from springing up when the incumbent interests lobby (read: bribe) accordingly.

Re: U.S. FCC chairman plans fast-track repeal of net neutrality: sources

#35

Post by facetube »

You were warned. You repeatedly claimed this wasn't the place for politics, that the reaction to Trump's Russia-assisted election was an overreaction. Here it is: it's on your shore, and it will rapidly intrude on your career and livelihood. I hope you're happy.

Re: U.S. FCC chairman plans fast-track repeal of net neutrality: sources

#36

Post by zavi »

facetube wrote: post #35

You were warned. You repeatedly claimed this wasn't the place for politics, that the reaction to Trump's Russia-assisted election was an overreaction. Here it is: it's on your shore, and it will rapidly intrude on your career and livelihood. I hope you're happy.

Me?

Re: U.S. FCC chairman plans fast-track repeal of net neutrality: sources

#38

Post by bluejekyll »

kablaa wrote: post #26
seanp2k2 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also amazing how little it costs to buy them. It's on the order of a hundred thousand dollars. Check out campaign contributions and you'll see. It needs to be at least 10-100x more expensive to really make a difference. It'd be hilarious / depressing is politicians started colluding to squeeze companies for orders of magnitude more in bribes (sorry, "campaign contributions").

I wonder if it would be possible to make some kind of "internet superpack". Like a collection of registered voters who would crowdfund more money than they are getting.

Isn't that effectively what the EFF is?

Re: U.S. FCC chairman plans fast-track repeal of net neutrality: sources

#39

Post by graycat »

IIRC a well thought out idea has long been to have privacy, in various forms, handled by the FTC. Then the recent change for the FCC was to go ahead and get the FCC out of privacy and move, hand over, transfer what the FCC was doing on privacy to the FTC.

I have read nothing and have no idea what the consequences will be for privacy. E.g., maybe the FTC will, net, give us better regulation of privacy or maybe worse.

Re: U.S. FCC chairman plans fast-track repeal of net neutrality: sources

#40

Post by ac29 »

wyager wrote: post #25

This is a somewhat unpopular opinion on HN, but I think net neutrality is only a mediocre local optimum. We can do much better without it. Look at Denmark; they top the global ITU ITC ranking for internet service, and how do they do it? By totally deregulating ISPs while setting government policy to allow for competition (instead of trying to force ISPs to follow some arbitrary notion of good behavior in the abject l…

Denmark is also small, dense, and wealthy. What works there won't necessarily work in a country like the US.

There are multiple good competitive ISPs in small, dense, wealthy areas of the US like San Francisco. That isn't true elsewhere, even including much of Silicon Valley which isnt that far away.

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