Net Neutrality Repeal Looks Likely

[AdironRider]

Or shit could get cheaper? My parents don't need video or streaming. They're 70. My dad still watches his VHS recordings of the Simpsons.

From a business standpoint paying for just the service you need could be better.

Or it could be the end of the fucking world like people are implying. Seriously, the end of business? Like FB/Google/Amazon would let their primary revenue generators get fucked. Think it through kids.

[PNWbrit]

Because your Dad is still watching VHS tapes is a fairly retarded basis to regulate the internet.

[AdironRider]

I'm saying it could get cheaper for some, more expensive for others, retard. I doubt it though, considering the three largest companies today completely rely on all internet businesses for revenue.

[The Tortoise]

Has there ever been a case where deregulation lead to lower rates?

[AdironRider]

Before 2015 we were totally fucked. The amount of hyperbole surrounding this is bullshit.

[Mazderati]

Before 2015 we were totally fucked. The amount of hyperbole surrounding this is bullshit.

Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, and the NCTA spent tens of millions lobbying against net neutrality. You don't think there's something in it for them?

[mall walker]

Before 2015 we were totally fucked. The amount of hyperbole surrounding this is bullshit.

what is your vocation?

[Mazderati]

Has there ever been a case where deregulation lead to lower rates?

In June 2008 former CEO of American Airlines, Robert Crandall stated,

The consequences of deregulation have been very adverse. Our airlines, once world leaders, are now laggards in every category, including fleet age, service quality and international reputation. Fewer and fewer flights are on time. Airport congestion has become a staple of late-night comedy shows. An even higher percentage of bags are lost or misplaced. Last-minute seats are harder and harder to find. Passenger complaints have skyrocketed. Airline service, by any standard, has become unacceptable.[36]

Wiki

[Vt-Freeheel]

I would guess it would have an effect on public wifi. And that wouldn't be good, who wants to buy time everywhere. And I like Netflix and stream 1080 MotoGP racing.

[Hott Butt Mud]

I don't think people really realize what this means. I mean, most people have no fucking clue what it is, but the people who think they know think this has to do with Netflix or Amazon buffering. Yeah, it has to do with that. There is a clear conflict of interest here for a company like Comcast since they own a majority share of NBC/Universal.

The really big implication is that basically every single business uses some kind of web app. Email, online banking, online bookkeeping, online client trackers, medical/dental/law practice software, etc etc etc. A lot of this is done online. Even Big Box Stores' inventory tracking. This all now has the potential to become more expensive for the business. This could absolutely kill small business in America. You're already paying for internet connection, Quickbooks, maybe Office 365. Maybe hosted Exchange or G Suite (whatever the fuck they call it now. Gmail for your business with your own @domain). You're paying for some kind of inventory tracker, customer tracker, practice management. This could all now become more expensive or slow to a crawl. This would mean it would only be useful or cost effective if you were a large organization that could host all that shit yourself. With the Software as a Service model and some other reasons, it's very cost effective for small, medium, and even some large businesses to move their shit into "the cloud" and it sure seems like most of them have.

An end of Net Neutrality could kill that and all the business that depend on it.

DUDE. This is spot on!

Basically, the Trump admin WANTS:

1) No small businesses
2) Large corporations to own multiple subsidiaries
3) Any law that aides small/medium sized businesses to be repealed/replaced

The net neutrality repeal shit will create a central network, for all of the admin functions of a business, to be positions nationally held by probably less than 100 businesses. Who knows the exact number, but making this type of internet change will drastically diminish the ability for small businesses to succeed and thrive (with local services).

A local government will no longer have the ability to approve a business licenses without first qualifying the businesses ability to interact with the internet. Just another layer of bureaucracy.

[splat]

I just heard a sat dish will get you internet out of Iceland with full service cloud.
I can't confirm any of that but I like the thought.
We'll prolly be buying contraband broadband from south of the border.

[splat]

Is dd for real? I can never tell.

i dont understand why you think this

There was a rumor you're a renegade ai bot with a code glitch.


j/k

[MakersTeleMark]

I just heard a sat dish will get you internet out of Iceland with full service cloud.
I can't confirm any of that but I like the thought.

Full service Icelandic cloud sounds like a ton of fun!

[twodogs]

FCC's next step on net neutrality: Blocking the states

The Obama administration’s net neutrality rules met their all-but-certain demise Tuesday as Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai outlined a plan to repeal them — while making sure states can't impose their own regulations to fill the void.

Pai will release his proposal on Wednesday with broad support on the Republican-controlled FCC, leaving supporters of the 2015 policy with little recourse except to fight back in the courts.

Story Continued Below


The repeal itself will be a major win for the telecommunications industry, which has bristled at what it says are heavy-handed regulations requiring internet service providers like Charter and AT&T to treat all web traffic equally. But blocking states from acting unilaterally would help cement that victory in a policy dispute that has whipsawed for years as the White House changed hands and courts took up the issue.

Internet service providers, many of whom operate across state lines, also want to avoid a series of disparate rules from states. They want to avoid a repeat of what happened this year on broadband privacy, when nearly two-dozen states proposed legislation to replace an Obama-FCC regulation that Congress revoked.

But proponents of the current rules question whether the FCC has the authority to block states from issuing their own rules, especially when the agency is paring back its oversight over internet service providers in the order.

Morning Tech
Technology news from Washington and Silicon Valley — weekday mornings, in your inbox.
Email Sign Up
By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.
"I certainly can think of nothing that could be more calculated to get states that are already pissed off to motivate themselves to challenge this decision," said Harold Feld, a senior vice president at Public Knowledge, a public interest group that supports the current regulations. "Did you see what happened with privacy?"

Pai's "Restoring Internet Freedom" order says that state and local regulations attempting to regulate broadband in ways that run counter to the federal rules would be pre-empted.
ADVERTISING



In practice, if a state attempts to impose its own net neutrality law and a company objects to the FCC, the agency could issue a ruling that could be used in a court battle, a senior agency official explained in a call with reporters Tuesday. The official spoke anonymously to discuss the change before it's released.

Some states and cities could still try to impose their own versions of net neutrality — "but if someone is really hellbent on running it through the court, I think they’d have a fight on their hands," Jessica Melugin, a policy fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said in an interview. "I think this is sending a warning shot saying we’re really serious about opening up this market and keeping regulations at any level out of the way."

The former Democratic majority at the FCC adopted a legal foundation in 2015 for its rules that gives the federal government the power to regulate internet service providers akin to how regulators approach utilities. Supporters of the rules say that legal framework is necessary to give the FCC sufficient oversight of the sector, but critics call it a government overreach that could open the door to price regulation.

Pai is among the fiercest critics of the current rules. His plan, shared with his fellow commissioners Tuesday and expected to be posted publicly Wednesday, would scrap that legal foundation. It would also eliminate rules that prevent internet service providers from blocking or slowing web traffic or negotiating paid deals with websites for faster access to consumers.

In place of the rules, Pai’s plan would require internet service providers to be transparent about their practices, including disclosing whether they engage in blocking or throttling certain web traffic or if they reach paid deals with websites for faster access to consumers. The Federal Trade Commission and the FCC would review those public disclosures, with the FTC reviewing whether they are anti-competitive or anti-consumer.

Net Neutrality: What is It?
POLITICO technology reporter Margaret Harding McGill explains net neutrality and the fight over who controls the internet and who regulates and polices the internet and its content.

Net Neutrality: What is It?
POLITICO technology reporter Margaret Harding McGill explains net neutrality and the fight over who controls the internet and who regulates and polices the internet and its content.
SharePlay Video
“Under my proposal, the federal government will stop micromanaging the internet,” Pai said in a statement.

And the Republican chairman wants to make sure states don’t attempt any micromanaging of their own. The FCC’s order calls broadband an interstate information service, and any state or local law regulating the service could not subvert or undermine the federal policy of deregulation, a second FCC senior official said.

Republican FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly, in an op-ed with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on the issue Tuesday, warned that replacing the net neutrality rules with a “patchwork” of state and local requirements would have an “even more detrimental effect on the internet” than the federal regulations.

“Broadband service (and the internet, more generally) does not stop at political borders and deserves a clear resolve that it is an interstate, information service,” O’Rielly told POLITICO in a written statement. “Beyond being the correct regulatory classification, it will prevent backdoor attempts to reimpose objectionable net neutrality rules or other harmful policies, including piecemeal and misguided privacy regimes.”

Comcast, AT&T and Verizon lobbied the commission ahead of the plan's release to include language saying states can’t jump in with their own net neutrality rules.

At least 22 states proposed broadband privacy legislation this year in the wake of congressional action revoking the FCC's online privacy rules, heightening the telecom industry’s fear that state legislatures controlled by Democrats will do the same with net neutrality.

Only two states, Minnesota and Nevada, require such privacy protections for ISPs, and those measures passed many years ago. California came close to passing new legislation this year but faced tech and ISP industry opposition. New America’s Open Technology Institute unveiled model legislation state lawmakers can use for future efforts.

Several officials in the states raged against the FCC news on Tuesday. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, both Democrats, slammed the news, as did former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti, currently vying for the Democratic nomination to be Illinois attorney general.

Net Neutrality: What is the Future of the Internet?
FCC chairman confirms net neutrality repeal plan
By MARGARET HARDING MCGILL
“We are fractured enough, and it's already hard for under-funded views to get their message out,” Mariotti tweeted in a seven-part thread.

“This is unacceptable,” tweeted California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.

Some political contenders also picked up on the uproar in what may portend a campaign message for Democrats. Randy Bryce, the Democratic challenger to House Speaker Paul Ryan’s seat and commonly known as “Iron Stache,” tweeted: “Trump’s FCC is planning to give more power to a handful of internet monopolies, allowing those monopolies to raise prices on all of us to add to their record profits." Cathy Myers, another Democratic challenger for the seat, unveiled a video pledging to fight Pai’s plan.

Pai’s plan to repeal the net neutrality rules quickly ignited a storm of protest from Democrats and left-leaning digital activists. Democratic FCC Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel sharply criticized the move, and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) called for a "firestorm of opposition.”

Pai began laying the groundwork for his proposal earlier this year, and it drew a record-breaking 22 million online comments. Republicans, telecom companies and right-leaning groups including Americans for Tax Reform praised Pai’s order.

The plan is “a bold strike turning America away from the path we were on — turning the internet into a cross between the post office and the Department of Motor Vehicles,” ATR President Grover Norquist said in a statement. “Freedom, not top-down control, is the best protector of a free and open internet worldwide.”

The long-running policy debate is likely headed for another court battle. The FCC’s last attempt at net neutrality rules was upheld by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals last year, despite a challenge from the telecom companies and trade groups. Advocates for the current rules have promised to take the fight to court if the FCC jettisons the regulations.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/...-states-183468

[TheSilverSurfer]

But! What about states rights!?

[nobueno]

What's the workaround; Google Fiber for those with access? Is a VPN based in a net-neutral country a viable option or is a US-based ISP required to access the VPN, thereby rendering the VPN in a net-neutral country potentially useless?

This will fuck over everyone whether you have google fiber, municipal broadband, or some other provider. Once your packets leave your area they travel on a backbone that is owned by CenturyLink, AT&T, Verizon, or some other company. So even if you don't get your internet service from CenturyLink, you'd still potentially be subject to their throttling rules once you hit their backbone.

Someone else mentioned satellite internet but that's not a viable alternative for most. Download speeds can be decent but upload speeds almost always suck. Also, it's pricey and the connection isn't as consistent.

Someone else mentioned a mesh network but that still has to be connected to the internet at some point so all the connections that access the internet would still be subject to the same throttling.

[Mazderati]

No bueno indeed.

[ex-powderbroker]

supreme court just ruled on this so i don’t see how it can pass. but the more i think about it, the more i believe that the civil unrest that will result from this will be massive. people like the system now and have gotten used to it, when you take it away.....

[From_the_NEK]

I can't stand the way cable TV packages work. The company has you by the balls if you want a certain channel. The current state of a neutral internet allows me to use the internet to view most of the handful of shows I want to watch. Otherwise I'd be forced to buy the next (quite a bit more expensive) cable package to watch them.
Removing net neutrality is the way the ISPs and cable companies plan to replace a lot of that income they are losing to cord cutters.

This is what we could see in the near future if the elimination of net neutrality rule goes through:

[splat]

But this will greatly increase CEO salaries, bonuses and the bribes politicians take to assfuck the public.
Having worked for a utility, I can tell you that is the synopsis of what motivates this shit.

[DBdude]

I'm saying it could get cheaper for some, more expensive for others, retard. I doubt it though, considering the three largest companies today completely rely on all internet businesses for revenue.

to boil it down to the most basic for you, we want the internet regulated like a utility in that most of us don't have choice in who we get internet services from.

[DBdude]

satellite connection isn't as consistent.

exactly

[iceclimb]

Portugal is a good example.

http://www.businessinsider.com/net-n...ok-fcc-2017-11

So... which tier is TGR in? You willing to pay extra for this forum?

[PNWbrit]

I can't stand the way cable TV packages work. The company has you by the balls if you want a certain channel. The current state of a neutral internet allows me to use the internet to view most of the handful of shows I want to watch. Otherwise I'd be forced to buy the next (quite a bit more expensive) cable package to watch them.
Removing net neutrality is the way the ISPs and cable companies plan to replace a lot of that income they are losing to cord cutters.

This is what we could see in the near future if the elimination of net neutrality rule goes through:

That is a different issue from net neutrality.

Do you watch the Simpsons? Adiron's Dad has them on tape maybe you can borrow them?

[splat]