The FCC voted to kill Net Neutrality today.

Dr. Hess said:

So, it turns out that the real Jackhole is Jimmy Kimmel.
 

Yea but I already knew that.  

ProDarwin said:

Unfortunately for many the primary use for a VPN is a [more] secure connection to their workpace network.

Even if they don't block it they'll make the home user pay a "business account fee" then charge the company for each incoming each VPN connection.

As long as they say it in their policies the FTC is powerless to stop it. 

That said racism and threats if violence have no place in the discourse. Its an easy out for those pushing  policy and dilutes the arguments. If the public can't get info from independent sources or watch European revulsion at the entire discussion there's no help.

God this whole thing is like watching the groundwork for big brother being laid after 9/11. I can't believe we're going to be gaslighted into this.

Okay I'm done here.

People misunderstand net neutrality and what it actually did. As usual, the mainstream media worked in a concerted effort to push a narrative while banking on decent people’s emotional reactions. They pushed a story with the full intention of manufacturing a specific response. Nothing new there.

Welcome to "Reoccurring Monthly Revenue".  Companies will find a way to provide you a service to separate you from your money.

This will take time, but you are staring at the front end of what the home alarm business went through in the early '90's.  Not that the current users want to be inconvenienced, but the government has unleashed the market.

Monthly monitoring of your home alarm is now $9.99 a month, or less.

Dr. Hess:

Look back at the previous infrastructure and regulatory (local state and federal) arguments. There's no free market at play in the internet business. Thus any argument made to that effect is invalid.

If line sharing was a rule (a title II issue) then I'd be okay with this as the free market argument would hold some water.

In reply to Dr. Hess :

Thank you.  You always make my day when you link to the kook papers of the internet..  They are so funny...  

However, There is a bit of a nugget of truth around the crazy vitrol from either side about what is happening on the other.  Would be nice if we could all just chat about stuff like adults.  

In reply to Dr. Hess :

You make me smile and I appreciate it. 

Stupid question:  What's to stop the creation of co-op Internet Service Providers?  Aside from initial cost?

In reply to stroker :

Initial cost is the big one followed by getting permitted.

The breaker is if you are putting lines in the incumbent generally owns the poles so you're faced with either putting new ones in, which opens a whole regulatory can of worms, or getting permission via commercial (ha or $$$) or legal channels (time consuming and expensive) to hang the fiber.

The other issue is that in a number of areas municipalities are forbidden from offering internet service (through lobbying and laws) so local government doesn't or can't help. 

Big players often get grants to expand out their networks in the millions or tens of millions of dollars areas. These are not generally available to startups.

The deck is really stacked against entering the market unless you're a Google.

Using the whitespace spectrum vacated by broadcast TV would have solved that issue but Verizon and Comcast were allowed to buy most of the prime spectrum for deploying that tech (by the FCC no less) and are basically just sitting on it.

Unused new, expanded, unsold capacity is going to find it's way into the market.

They can not control/limit they capability of updated systems.  The accountants running these companies will monetize the bandwidth.

Being in the barn when they start making sausage, is not for the faint of heart. 

This is beginning to look like another example of something that started in the United States but other developed countries are figuring out how to do better. 

For many people, a broadband connection is required these days to to do their jobs, run their businesses and earn a living. The number is increasing throughout the world. Working in Silicon Valley its not an absolute requirement, but it is expected. If you don't have it, you are an anomaly. People here are very aware there are many places in the world where there is far more bandwidth available for less than we pay. If companies have to fork over $$$ and to Comcast and ATT,  to get their people connected, jobs can go elsewhere along with the skilled talent to do them.

Robbie said:

GameboyRMH said:

restricted only by the goodness of their hearts.

I don't mean to harp my point in this thread, but they are actually mainly restricted by their customers, just like any other corporation.

For all the "let's regulate this like utilities" arguments: I can buy power from many different suppliers and my electric company charges separately to deliver it to my house. There are also plans available where I pay different amounts for power at different times of day or different times of year. Same electrons, different price when coming from different places at different times. I have way more choice than I need. Why is there not electron neutrality? I can choose that plan if I like, or I can choose a different plan if a different one fits my needs better. I agree that they don't exactly make this easy knowledge, but the choices are out there for smart consumers.

I'm also not arguing that we should not have net neutrality, but rather that I'm not sure life without it is the end of the free world and the beginning of the decent into chaos.

 

Thats because there isnt a giant battery holding power magically on the grid. It actually pretty tough to keep the electrical grid to stay consistent for all consumers. Ever run a generator? Then plug in your circular saw? The generator chugs for a second to react and will not provide the same power as when it levels back out. A hospital or laboratory couldnt accept that kind of swing being delivered to their equipment. Throw in something like 40% of the power used in a building tends to hvac related, so now you have time and weather dependant loads. 

ISPs only needs a network big enough for the highest expected load they are willing to provide. There are internet "batteries"; they are called harddrives. 

Two very different things in terms of usage and supply.

The internet NN question seems to me to show the need to define how our society and government should define the internet. 

- Is it a right to have access to at cost internet? Same as for phone/gas/electric/roads?

- Should the transmission infrastructure be the responsibility of Private or Government entities?

Depending how you answer that I find greatly affects the view of NN.

There was an electric blackout in the Northeast and parts of Canada in 2003. Per the last report I read, the same blackout can still occur as all the disparate companies and governments can't agree to just fix it. I fear that NN or not, the base issues with securing a stable and fairly supplied internet is not bring addressed.

I think net neutrality is just a simple yes. As discussed in other posts, it doesn't harm anyone but not having it is proven to cause some negative impacts to users. Not end of the world though.

I feel internet is critical for our national future and federal taxes should be increased to cover the cost to install a hardened extremely high bandwidth communication network down to the neighborhood panel. Using fiber or whatever. Built into that new tax structure is the assumption of continuing maintenance and escalated costs to cover the next tech beyond fiber and a final budgetary investment to recycle the system when hard fiber becomes obsolete. The fed will have zero control over other parts of the system. ISPs, DNSs etc would simply have access with a corporate tax payment.

Nothing stopping the local governments then going out for bid to award no less than 3 providers to distribute from that panel. This is where things get tricky as often providers "don't illegally" collude to simply not bid until they can split monopolies between them. So may need some work there.

In reply to Advan046 :

It's tricky. I don't want government control over the internet as they've already proven that being impartial is difficult. I also realize that private entities can't be trusted not to privately censor data, direct you to services which are better monetized, or simply tier you off from data for a fee.

So there was an article on Quartz today regarding library fines which got me thinking. Bear with me a moment I'll circle back around to NN.

Basically the author advocates for removing library fines because it has a disproportionate effect on restricting access to information to lower income households. The theory is that being late while examining some data can eventually bar you from accessing further data, or attempting to, over some small sum of money. Naturally the less resources that you have access to the greater the chances that you'll remain trapped in a poverty cycle (the article was about NYC libraries in low income neighborhoods.)

Net Neutrality is much like that. If you're tiered off from accessing all but the information which is curated for you in an attempt to further monetize your actions, the less quality information you'll have access to, and the less informed your decision making becomes. This disproportionately affects lower income households (especially since the FCC severely restricted grant programs serving low income households earlier this year) and effectively creates class systems based in information access. The purpose of the internet was to facilitate the transfer of and archive information. As it became more widely used it has had the effect of equalizing informed decision making and providing better access to services. I think it would be a shame to lose that especially for those trapped by economic circumstances.

The0retical said:

It's tricky. I don't want government control over the internet as they've already proven that being impartial is difficult.

Keep in mind though, that the US government has never unlawfully blocked or degraded access to anything on the public Internet, and there have been very few incidents of politically-motivated blocking across the Western world. They'll spy on you like crazy while you do it, but that has nothing to do with net neutrality. I'd say they've done a good job of being impartial.

The US has actually functioned nicely as a "free speech haven" for the rest of the world, in terms of traffic, because of this. They'll send a SWAT team into your datacenter if you host certain content in the US, but again, not a NN issue. If you want your hosting to be safe, and a darknet isn't an option, you put it in either Russia or Iceland, depending on whether it will piss off Russia.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Yea but at the same time (not a flounder) we currently have an elected government that removed most of the science regarding climate change from it's own agency's website and stripped privacy protections earlier this year.

Again, if there were a free market in internet services I wouldn't have as much of a problem with this however, the US government doesn't feel that internet is an essential service and service providers appear to be willing to do anything that returns a greater dividend to stock holders than last quarter. That's seriously problematic for the future.

Luckily this is all agency type rulemaking stuff right now so it's both easily reversible and the FCC still needs to clear the hurdle of proving to the courts (likely the 9th Circuit) that this change is in the publics best interests. Looking through the 200 page justifications, that's going to be hard since it basically says the opposite of the 300 pages used to justify the previous rule making and grossly misrepresents a lot of data such as telecom investments over the period.

I also saw that Chuck Schumer is attempting to force a vote on an actual Net Neutrality bill prior to the 2018 mid terms. While likely to fail it'll put on record every elected official who is opposed to it and provide some interesting ammo for the mid-terms.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

I must make a side point. While the internet is basically unfiltered now. I was personally affected by government censorship at the start of the internet. Back in the early 90's a government server was used for the University of Michigan internet and it's manager informed me that a Chinese ftp/server I was accessing for school was blocked by government direction. So as a University of Michigan student I had to find another way to get to the site to get the information.

Regardless of who "owns" the internet infrastructure the federal government could easily lock it down if it wanted. But the Federal Government is made up of people like you and me and I think everyone wants it to stay untouched for non criminal activity.

My experience in learning about how highly regulated and free unregulated markects work we essentially end up at the same place. With regional/private infrastructure eventually you get to a border. And I have never seen a private/regional entity spend a nonprofit dime on making sure that interface between company A and anyone else is strong and stable long term. 

That is where we'll planned Fed activity can do some good.