FCC plan would give Internet providers power to choose the sites customers see and use

originally posted by: DJW001
a reply to: UKTruth

The Mafia got its start in Sicily by monopolizing the water supply. The internet is necessary for modern commerce and should not be controlled by monopolies. Private money seeking corporations should not be allowed to determine access to free trade and uncensored communications. Revoking Net Neutrality is like allowing a business to build a dam across a river that towns downstream rely on for sustenance and livelihood.

The issue is indeed the monopoly. The current method of controlling it - net neutrality - is nonsense because it opens up an anti-competitive situation in which companies like Google and Facebook get favourable treatment and worse it opens up an avenue for the govt to control information to hundreds of millions of people - the real free speech issue.

The right method is to remove the monopolistic environment that the ISPs enjoy by opening up the infrastructure - like I said initially.

Who can actually argue with my statement?:
"We'll pay for what we want to consume and the content providers will pay for what they want to publish".

a reply to: UKTruth

Net Neutrality is not a monopoly, it is the opposite of one. The ISPs can still compete for the consumer market, which is good for consumers, but they cannot interfere or manipulate the commercial end, which is good for businesses... and the polity. It is bad enough that cable companies can limit which media are carried. Why extend that corporate power to the internet?

originally posted by: DJW001
a reply to: UKTruth

Net Neutrality is not a monopoly, it is the opposite of one. The ISPs can still compete for the consumer market, which is good for consumers, but they cannot interfere or manipulate the commercial end, which is good for businesses... and the polity. It is bad enough that cable companies can limit which media are carried. Why extend that corporate power to the internet?

It didn't say it was - I said it was a stupid method to control a monopoly... creating an anti-competitive environment.
Once again, the internet is not a utility, so 'corporate power', which should actually be private power MUST control it. Net neutrality PROMOTES what you call corporate power of the internet - just on the content side as opposed to the service side.

Why is it bad that cable companies can limit which media gets carried??? Are you saying that cable companies should not be able to choose who uses their service to reach consumers???

a reply to: UKTruth

We'll pay for what we want to consume and the content providers will pay for what they want to publish".

Because not everyone with something important to say can afford to publish it. In Soviet Russia, important works were circulated as typed manuscripts. These samizdat publications circulated among intellectuals, but could not reach a larger audience. The internet has opened political and intellectual writers to a whole new world market... abolishing Net Neutrality would put a small handful of very large, transnational for profit corporations in a position to close those markets to the poor and disempowered.

a reply to: UKTruth

But the internet is a utility. That's the whole point. Cable networks are not. They are one way. They exist to sell a market (viewers) to advertisers. The internet is now central to all business interactions through banking and communications functions. It has supplanted the postal service, which was necessary for the expansion of trade... and even national identity over the past 200 years.

originally posted by: DJW001
a reply to: UKTruth

We'll pay for what we want to consume and the content providers will pay for what they want to publish".

Because not everyone with something important to say can afford to publish it. In Soviet Russia, important works were circulated as typed manuscripts. These samizdat publications circulated among intellectuals, but could not reach a larger audience. The internet has opened political and intellectual writers to a whole new world market... abolishing Net Neutrality would put a small handful of very large, transnational for profit corporations in a position to close those markets to the poor and disempowered.

You are not making sense - removing net neutrality will not increase costs for small publishers. That really is not the issue at all.
Why is it do you think the big companies like Google lobby so hard for net neutrality? Out of the goodness of their hearts and the interests of the people? Give me a break. What they are scared of is that they will have to pay for their already privileged status. The idea that everyine gets a fair shot today is a complete nonsense.



Once again - the real issue is that there is not enough choice of ISP and that is where the focus should be. Even the person who coined the term net neutrality highlights this and actually underplays the need for continued net neutrality.
You seem caught up in a headline and are refusing to understand the actual issue.

By arguing for net neutrality which doesn't really exist you are arguing FOR the continuation of the monopoly ISPs hold AND the privilege the big players like Google enjoy. The quite obvious answer is to have more ISPs plugged into the internet backbone and more choice for the consumer.

www.wired.com...

originally posted by: DJW001
a reply to: UKTruth

But the internet is a utility. That's the whole point. Cable networks are not. They are one way. They exist to sell a market (viewers) to advertisers. The internet is now central to all business interactions through banking and communications functions. It has supplanted the postal service, which was necessary for the expansion of trade... and even national identity over the past 200 years.

You are confusing the internet backbone with ISPs. "The internet" is not one thing.
Net neutrality regulates the ISPs

originally posted by: UKTruth

originally posted by: DJW001
a reply to: UKTruth

But the internet is a utility. That's the whole point. Cable networks are not. They are one way. They exist to sell a market (viewers) to advertisers. The internet is now central to all business interactions through banking and communications functions. It has supplanted the postal service, which was necessary for the expansion of trade... and even national identity over the past 200 years.

You are confusing the internet backbone with ISPs. "The internet" is not one thing.
Net neutrality regulates the ISPs

So how does Net Neutrality prevent competition among the ISPs? How would rolling it back create openings for startup networks?

originally posted by: DJW001

originally posted by: UKTruth

originally posted by: DJW001
a reply to: UKTruth

But the internet is a utility. That's the whole point. Cable networks are not. They are one way. They exist to sell a market (viewers) to advertisers. The internet is now central to all business interactions through banking and communications functions. It has supplanted the postal service, which was necessary for the expansion of trade... and even national identity over the past 200 years.

You are confusing the internet backbone with ISPs. "The internet" is not one thing.
Net neutrality regulates the ISPs

So how does Net Neutrality prevent competition among the ISPs? How would rolling it back create openings for startup networks?

They are separate issues and I am saying that the important issue is focusing on ISP competition, not getting hung up on net neutrality, which apart from not really existing in practice because it has not resulted in a fair shake for all content providers, does nothing but provide a competitive advantage to big players. Banging on about net neutrality is just supporting big corporations and taking the focus off the real issue.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

They had this ability from the beginning to 2015. Yet they didn't do that.

Also 5G will completely change internet access. Between that, satellite, and cable/dsl/fiber, almost no one in the US will have fewer than three choices for an ISP.

a reply to: UKTruth

So... another round of trust busting? I can get behind that, but who will fork out the cash to lay the fiberoptic cable?

a reply to: DJW001

No one needs to, see wireless options. But if you're concerned about construction costs, just do what they do with natural gas lines and force them to lease the pipes at cost.

originally posted by: Aazadan
Oh, and just incase no one has seen this, for all the states rights people out there.

arstechnica.com...

At the same time NN is planned to be repealed, they're passing another law (or rather an FCC regulation) that prohibits states from making their own Net Neutrality laws.

I agree with getting rid of the NN laws at the federal level.

However, I disagree with the federal government telling states that they can't do something, at least something like this.

Comcast hints at plan for paid fast lanes after net neutrality repeal

Comcast still won't block or throttle—but paid prioritization may be on the way.

But with Republican Ajit Pai now in charge at the Federal Communications Commission, Comcast's stance has changed. While the company still says it won't block or throttle Internet content, it has dropped its promise about not instituting paid prioritization.

Instead, Comcast now vaguely says that it won't "discriminate against lawful content" or impose "anti-competitive paid prioritization." The change in wording suggests that Comcast may offer paid fast lanes to websites or other online services, such as video streaming providers, after Pai's FCC eliminates the net neutrality rules next month.

Source
How many others will follow similarly?

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If you want to see what America would be like if it ditched net neutrality, just look at Portugal

The country's wireless carrier Meo offers a package that's very different from those available in the US. Users pay for traditional "data" — and on top of that, they pay for additional packages based on the kind of data and apps they want to use.

Source


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The 265 members of Congress who sold you out to ISPs, and how much it cost to buy them
Source
Look at the majority, wonder why that is? Do they just feel they are turning around Obama's NN? I don't think they realize this will affect their side of the media.

a reply to: UKTruth

If the majority of consumers under capitalism want to keep Net Neutrality, then it should stay.
Otherwise, it should be a states rights issue.

As usual, the Big Corporations want all the power under capitalism and none for anyone else.

Yeah like contributing to this thread is feasible....

Though it is a pretty good metaphor. I'd like to have a small chat with real time responses that a fresh thread provides. But instead I am redirected to this behemoth thread with tangents all over the place and time lost posts whose replies probably won't be seen. It's not what I want, and it obviously wasn't enough for OP in the other thread. It is an inferior experience. Yet, the regulations say all traffic goes through here regardless.

Well I'm here and asking. The courts are trying to force the internet to be a utility. The FCC controls radio and speech is governed there in a way that I don't agree with. If NN goes back through making it a utility wouldn't the same speech rules apply to the internet then that the radio has now?

a reply to: CriticalStinker

1) its Ludicrous, not ludacras: www.dictionary.com...

2) I seriously doubt any thing can be done about this at this point.

a reply to: TacticalStats

Yes. Only in crazy land does the government controlling something = freedom and greatness.

its insane that people here are against NN... without it.. you might not even be able to access ATS anymore.. b/c your isp would block it...

and that is the problem