The Senate has forced a vote to restore net neutrality

nlinecomputers

nlinecomputers

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I was so happy to read this but unfortunately it probably doesn't matter because I'm sure the president will cut short his golfing trip to veto the whole thing.
 
JoeTech said:
I was so happy to read this but unfortunately it probably doesn't matter because I'm sure the president will cut short his golfing trip to veto the whole thing.
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He can't. This is not a law. It is a resolution. The Congressional Review Act of 1996 gives Congress and the Senate the power of oversite over ANY Federal Regulation if done within 60 days of its enactment. The changes in Net Neutrality were not laws but regulations imposed by the FCC under authority it already has to govern the Internet. If both houses pass the resolution then the regulation is nullified. It doesn't go before the President because it is NOT a bill being passed into law.
 
Net Neutrality is not really a thing. It was an Obama regulation slipped in in 2016 before the election. It never took effect. This is all a misdirection...
 
Election year grandstanding for the media and pandering for votes. However it will be useful to determine which elected officials still believe in free enterprise.
 
There hasn't been a law mandating net neutrality, but as a policy it was an attempt to codify what for most of the life of the Internet was general practice. The need for that kind of clarifying regulation was made obvious by what in many cases are effectively monopoly providers using that power for competitive advantage in product areas that they wished to move into.

Unfortunately this will probably die in the House and even if it doesn't, the fix is already being paid for and the same thing will come back again.
 
fencepost said:
There hasn't been a law mandating net neutrality, but as a policy it was an attempt to codify what for most of the life of the Internet was general practice. The need for that kind of clarifying regulation was made obvious by what in many cases are effectively monopoly providers using that power for competitive advantage in product areas that they wished to move into.

Unfortunately this will probably die in the House and even if it doesn't, the fix is already being paid for and the same thing will come back again.
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Let's boil this down a bit. What you are saying is that property owners should be forced to provide goods and services without recompense. What is another name for that?
 
I hate my ISP too. But the thought of the government propping them up by administrative fiat makes me hate even more. Because that's what net neutrality will do in the long run. It erects a system of alternate feedback other than customer wishes. That makes it harder for new entrants into the business and it slows the pace of innovation. Nothing will fix this issue faster than unfettered free markets where the offending big businesses can be allowed to fail rapidly, publicly, and loudly. NN gives them a layer of obscurity where they can just claim the FCC made them do whatever consumer-unfriendly action they take. Think of how much good the government has done your health care insurance lately.
 
Probably something like "semi-regulated market," particularly relevant for areas where there are service providers with effective monopolies - particularly when those monopolies also received tax incentives or other financial considerations (e.g. "build this infrastructure and we won't authorize any other cable providers for 30 years") for building the infrastructure. If you think the carriers aren't getting any kind of incentives reflect on this: Are they getting utility easements or do they have to negotiate with every landowner to put up their own poles or run their underground cabling?

Put differently, if you have 3 connectivity options (Comcast 150Mbps, AT&T 33.6Kbps dialup, cell carrier 4G capped at 10GB/month before dropping to 3G/dialup speeds), should Comcast be able to both charge you for Internet service and charge website/service owners for the right to send you traffic? What grounds are legitimate for Comcast to decide on the rates charged to those third parties? Traffic volume? Political leanings?

If Comcast's lobbyists say "Mr Cruz isn't staying bought" would it be acceptable for Comcast to throttle throughput from Ted Cruz's campaign website to a combined 256Kbps for all Comcast customers in Texas - or perhaps just randomly drop packets to/from it?

This becomes even more relevant with massive conglomerates, because those companies are increasingly likely to offer their own versions of services (e.g. Comcast vs Netflix vs Hulu vs whatever other streaming services or AT&T's blocking FaceTime for a while). Do we really want a Balkanized Internet?

And as for an unregulated free market and big companies being allowed to fail publicly, do you know the best investment a company can make? Political candidates in a position to give them a local monopoly. The ROI of not having a competitor even able to provide service within a town is enormous.

Edit: Occurred to me a couple minutes ago: "Time for some traffic problems in [you select]." Now put that in the hands of every carrier in the US.
 
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fencepost said:
Edit: Occurred to me a couple minutes ago: "Time for some traffic problems in [you select]." Now put that in the hands of every carrier in the US.
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Sure, let's put that power into the hands of some political flunky instead. He/she calls Comcast and says, "You WILL have traffic problems at Trump Tower today!", in that tone that says Do IT or I'll make your life miserable. The news lately has many instances of US government misbehavior. Why give them even more power?
 
Metanis said:
Sure, let's put that power into the hands of some political flunky instead. He/she calls Comcast and says, "You WILL have traffic problems at Trump Tower today!", in that tone that says Do IT or I'll make your life miserable. The news lately has many instances of US government misbehavior. Why give them even more power?
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This is very unlikely to happen, it's much more likely that some lobbyist will pay someone off with favours and private sector job offers to get what they want. Most unelected government officials are just doing their jobs according to the will of the secretary for that department at that particular time. If you want governance then elect clean politicians. If you want clean politicians then completely ban corporate involvement directly or indirectly in politics.
 
ComputerPlano said:
Let's boil this down a bit. What you are saying is that property owners should be forced to provide goods and services without recompense. What is another name for that?
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No, that's not what he's saying. He's saying that effective monopolies should be regulated in their market behaviour because monopolies are bad for consumers. He wasn't making a political statement but a practical one.
 
Metanis said:
Nothing will fix this issue faster than unfettered free markets where the offending big businesses can be allowed to fail rapidly, publicly, and loudly.
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An unfettered free market is just as much of a pipe dream at this point as any liberal pipe dream. Large corporations own the government through the lobbying system. The concept of "too big to fail" will continue to exist as long as lobbying does. As long as companies are too big to fail, we will never have a free market.

Net neutrality rules are not an ideal solution, but a far more achievable one than waiting for a free market to just start existing and then solve the problem for us.
 
Those that think we live in a Democracy or a Free market enterprise (or where one thinks the politicians on either side are for it) should be laughed out of the conversation in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. You can't stifle what doesn't exist.

I think what the 17% of supporters for the repeal of net neutrality think, is that the ISP's job is to provide the internet to customers... that is incorrect. Their job is to provide access to the internet. The internet isn't the ISP's to have. It's a social construct that they (ISP's) want to control for their own profit and power. They want to commercialize every facet of the internet, already pre-built on the backs of others. Free market my ass, it's a take-over by the corporations and power elite.

75% of Trump voters want net neutrality and 83% of the population overall want's net neutrality. Representatives should represent, not heave their corporate overlords' purchased vote upon the pile. Representatives that vote against net neutrality are literally traitors: "One who betrays any confidence or trust; someone who violates his allegiance to the people of whom they represent."

@Metanis How does a regulation that says, "You, nor the government, may not regulate the Internet." equate to the government controlling the internet? It's truly a 1984 "double-think". I am open minded to alternative views but this one seems pretty cut and dry.
 
phaZed said:
Those that think we live in a Democracy or a Free market enterprise (or where one thinks the politicians on either side are for it) should be laughed out of the conversation in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. You can't stifle what doesn't exist.

I think what the 17% of supporters for the repeal of net neutrality think, is that the ISP's job is to provide the internet to customers... that is incorrect. Their job is to provide access to the internet. The internet isn't the ISP's to have. It's a social construct that they (ISP's) want to control for their own profit and power. They want to commercialize every facet of the internet, already pre-built on the backs of others. Free market my ass, it's a take-over by the corporations and power elite.

75% of Trump voters want net neutrality and 83% of the population overall want's net neutrality. Representatives should represent, not heave their corporate overlords' purchased vote upon the pile. Representatives that vote against net neutrality are literally traitors: "One who betrays any confidence or trust; someone who violates his allegiance to the people of whom they represent."

@Metanis How does a regulation that says, "You, nor the government, may not regulate the Internet." equate to the government controlling the internet? It's truly a 1984 "double-think". I am open minded to alternative views but this one seems pretty cut and dry.
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Well how in hell do you get there if you won't start forcing the corporate conglomerates to get out of bed with the government? Baby steps. And this is damn good example of where a bit of short-term pain could have amazing long-term benefits. But this constant bed-wetting attitude about how tough it will be just breeds more misery.
 
Metanis said:
Well how in hell do you get there if you won't start forcing the corporate conglomerates to get out of bed with the government? Baby steps. And this is damn good example of where a bit of short-term pain could have amazing long-term benefits. But this constant bed-wetting attitude about how tough it will be just breeds more misery.
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I'm not sure that I follow. Corporate conglomerates are why net neutrality is on the chopping block.. so why are you against net neutrality? You seem to be in support of the corruption.

I don't follow the short-term/long-term pain thing or the bed wetting part.. If the US does this, only the US will be limited - an economy killer. It's not bed-wetting, it's common sense foresight.

What kind of positive effects do you foresee if net neutrality were scrapped in favor of full corporate control of the internet?

EDIT: And it would be fairly easy to start fixing government, simply repeal the Republican Supreme Court's Citizens United decision that legalizes bribery.
 
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I would love to see term limits in Congress. It's hard to change anything when the same people are always there and don't feel worried about there jobs to do anything. That and we would get people who might actually understand current technologies and be better able to legislate it.

I would also love to see Congress have to live with our current healthcare, medicare, and social security instead of having their own special health and pension plans. Then they wouldn't be so quick to try and get rid of it all for their profit and actually try to make it better.
 
Net Neutrality - Does the FCC have the authority to regulate the Internet?

As a consultant to one ILEC's Section 271 Petition before the FCC on recommendation from the DOJ (as a result of the second dereg in mid 90's) and the various state PSCs, Net Neutrality, was a "given" to obtain approval to sell long distance

ILECs were proscribed from selling LD as a result of the 1st dereg - the event that gave birth to baby bells. ILECs very badly wanted to sell LD and so as a prequisite...

To demonstrate "non-discriminatory wholesale access" to CLECs, ILEC's were evaluated against 14 components. One key element was UNEs (Unbundled Network Elements). This required ILECs to offer CLECs unbundled elements of local loops (the ph #, the pair, dial tone, the switch, etc).

Precedent A
If an ILEC is required to provide UNEs, can an ILEC force a consumer to buy dial tone if they only want to purchase a datalink. In otherwords, you must buy your narrowband and broadband "bundled?"

ILECs had refused to sell "dry loops" - broadband only local loops. Needless to say, this didn't sit very well with the FCC, DOJ and PSCs. So to appease these "Regulators" to win Section 271 approval, they agreed to do so. Requiring and agreeing to do so is de facto regulation. This went back a forth in the courts as the FCC didn't address local market competitiveness but in 2003 the FCC reworded their requirements with much the same result

Precedent B

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted 4-0 to approve the deal after AT&T promised to maintain “network neutrality” of its high-speed Internet platform for two years, meaning it will not charge certain Web media providers more to carry data-heavy Internet content such as video.

It was one of several key concessions that the top U.S. phone provider pledged late on Thursday to quiet concerns that the takeover would stifle competition.
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Both early 2000 precedents (Bush Presidency) are rulings, regulations, quid pro qou

Then Comes Comcast is 2010. They win their Net Neutrality case on Federal Appeal. The courts conclude the FCC does not have the authority to regulate ISP's network "openess"

Whereas Common Carriers LEC's are regulated by the FCC, ISP's are not.

Bought and Sold.
 
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