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

originally posted by: toysforadults
this will change nothing, the free market will work and they will have to compete with other companies who offer better packages

the entire economy now rests on the internet and data they will not throttle it and nothing will change

How? How does anyone build a competitor to TWC? It's financially impossible to build a competing last mile network. Unless we break up the telecom companies so that they can only provide the network itself, or access to content on the network similar to what we had in the dial up days, competition is impossible.

originally posted by: dreamingawake
Well, since the other thread closed right as I was posting, lost my thoughts. So, in short:
Basically this has come to a head and am not seeing any positives of yet to countering this. Though, similarly, the net helped to beat SOPA, PIPA, etc., for example. This time it's been so wrapped up media wise, partisan wise, corruption wise, etc, it's going to make a for a bigger challenge. If one hasn't already, writing your Reps might bring the topic up more, as some are discussing it right now.

Also, doubting sites such as this would survive, as well as the more independent streaming sites, to online gaming. This is due to the packaging as well as the limiting on gigs.

This battle has already been lost. The only hope for NN currently is that the ACLU is successful in their lawsuit, can delay implementation due to ongoing litigation until 2020, and then the new President in 2020 appoints people who are pro NN to the FCC.

Which is basically a longshot at best as no party actually supports NN (and few politicians even know what it is).

a reply to: dug88

No, this is not a constitutional issue about free speech--maybe about the limitations of government, but not free speech.

originally posted by: SlapMonkey
a reply to: dug88

No, this is not a constitutional issue about free speech--maybe about the limitations of government, but not free speech.

Do you understand how much free speech you are granted because of the internet? You personally can make a website or join an existing community, such as this one, and have your thoughts and words heard by millions of people. Explain to me how you will do this without the internet?

You are effectively silencing the voices of millions by removing their access to the only platform they have to be heard.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: roadgravel

Can't we make a new one?

Not me, I mean. I don't know how. But I think there are people who do.

No. There's been research into the concept of meshnets, where we could make a patchwork infrastructure that bypasses the local ISP networks, but they don't scale.

There's a technology that's been in the works for about 10 years now called whitefi
www.radio-electronics.com...

Which is basically repurposing the old TV white space bandwidth. This technology is moderately promising. It has very good signal strength, and a high transmission distance. It's also wireless so it bypasses the need for a last mile connection. The downside is that it can't really support speeds above about 10 MB/s which puts it at a little under 1/5 the average internet speed in the US. Basically, it supports browsing but not streaming past very low resolutions.

Wired networks are required, and for that we either need a private/government plan to build a competing network (this would cost about $650 billion) and duplicate existing infrastructure. Or we need a way to let companies use existing infrastructure to compete.

The problem with using existing infrastructure is that it's not actually competition. If a startup ISP wants to offer internet locally, they have to lease the line space from Time Warner Cable, which means the customer goes through both the startup and TWC's policies.

Without duplicating the infrastructure the only real way to do this is to move to the model we had after the phone companies were broken up and we had dial up internet. Remember those days, when you could dial any of 50+ local ISP's for access? Basically, it would require breaking up the current ISP's so that one company owns and maintains the network while other competing companies handle all the packet routing and access to a network, leasing space. This would provide actual competition. But go figure, the proposed changes to NN specifically prevent this from being legislated and instead reaffirm monopoly status for the ISP's.

originally posted by: toysforadults
this will change nothing, the free market will work and they will have to compete with other companies who offer better packages

the entire economy now rests on the internet and data they will not throttle it and nothing will change

Very Very Very unlikely to happen.

Not even Google Fiber with their license to print money has been successful in doing this.
The existing telecom Oligarch (comcast,verizon,and att) have made it impossible with lawsuits , obstruction, and paid off politicians that even Google has been struggling.



The problem is that we do not have competition on the fast broadband spectrum with the current Oligarch in place. They control the market not the other way around.

a reply to: dug88

You have the right to free speech, not the right to be heard.

originally posted by: MichiganSwampBuck
Does this mean that if I went directly to a web page by typing in the web address that potentially my ISP could block that website and not let me view it? Pardon my ignorance, but Is this what could happen?

Sort of. They wouldn't be able to prevent viewing the webpage entirely, but they could slow it down so that it takes hours to load unless you pay a fee to access that specific website. However the ISP will be able to make the same deal with that website... unless they pay, they'll slow down traffic to it from their network.

As a result, what you'll end up doing is paying the ISP for specific access to the website, and then likely a subscription fee to that website itself so that they can pay their bills.

It's an end to the concept of an open internet.

originally posted by: interupt42
We should be flooding the @realDonaldTrump twitter feed with don't kill net neutrality tweets.

Tell him that Comcast owns NBC. If we remove Net Neutrality, Comcast will have the power to show only NBC media on their internet packages.

originally posted by: UKTruth
You'll benefit when competition ramps up - to facilitate that the govt should focus not on net neutrality but on making sure that physical network owners open up their access so that others can compete...

So you're saying that the government should step in, overturn all the monopoly agreements that were put in place in exchange for the building of the networks, and that the owners of the fiber optic lines should be forced to let competing business on to them when those businesses did nothing to build it?

The only real solution here is for the government to buy the communication infrastructure from these companies. The companies can then lease the bandwidth from the government and consumers could sign up with virtually any provider. We trail almost every other developed country in internet speed because the current monopolies have little incentive to give better service. Same thing for electrical service. One buyer of the infrastructure would lead to much greater efficiencies and much better service.

a reply to: dug88

This is not a free speech issue. Constitutional rights are between citizens and government. Private industry is free to silence people in any way they wish.

More than anything, it's an economic issue.

originally posted by: SlapMonkey
a reply to: dug88

You have the right to free speech, not the right to be heard.

Being able to read and write is something you probably take for granted but if this was 400 years ago you would likely not be able to because the church decided who got to read and write. Try and picture how much freedom you would have if it were up to some company who got access to reading and writing. Being able to access the internet today is the equivalent of being able to read and write 400 years ago.

Communication is a human right. What's the first thing they do to prisoners? Remove their ability to freely communicate to whoever they want. Their phone calls and letters are monitored any internet access is monitored.

In this world the primary form of communication is the internet. By giving ISP's sole control over all peoples communications you make them the same as guards in a prison.

Even my telephone communication is done over VOIP now. My phone network switched me to LTE where even your voice calls are done over a digital network making them subject to the same kind of monitoring and control the rest of the internet will have.
en.m.wikipedia.org...(telecommunication)

The LTE standard supports only packet switching with its all-IP network. Voice calls in GSM, UMTS and CDMA2000 are circuit switched, so with the adoption of LTE, carriers will have to re-engineer their voice call network.[107] 

a reply to: Aazadan

There's been research into the concept of meshnets, where we could make a patchwork infrastructure that bypasses the local ISP networks, but they don't scale

A big issue with mesh networks even if you overcome the technical scaling issues, is liability.

The Big telecom Oligarch and politicians will be to happy to remind the folks that illegal activities that occurs through YOUR connection you will be held responsible for (ie. pizzagate ).

The issue is not so much technical but rather scumbag politicians and lobbyist shenanigans to squash any valid alternatives.

arstechnica.com...

New York's attorney general has been trying to investigate fraud in public comments on the Federal Communications Commission's anti-net neutrality plan but alleges that the FCC has refused to cooperate with the investigation.

NY State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says that "hundreds of thousands of Americans" were likely impersonated in fake comments on the net neutrality docket. But FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's office would not provide information needed for New York's investigation, Schneiderman wrote yesterday in an open letter to Pai:

 [T]he process the FCC has employed to consider potentially sweeping alterations to current net neutrality rules has been corrupted by the fraudulent use of Americans' identities — and the FCC has been unwilling to assist my office in our efforts to investigate this unlawful activity.

Specifically, for six months my office has been investigating who perpetrated a massive scheme to corrupt the FCC's notice and comment process through the misuse of enormous numbers of real New Yorkers' and other Americans' identities. Such conduct likely violates state law—yet the FCC has refused multiple requests for crucial evidence in its sole possession that is vital to permit that law enforcement investigation to proceed.

The FCC received 22 million comments on its plan to repeal net neutrality rules and deregulate broadband providers, but many were fraudulent. In May, some of the people who were impersonated by anti-net neutrality spammers asked the Federal Communications Commission to notify other victims of the impersonation and remove fraudulent comments from the net neutrality docket.

Internet should be regulated LIKE A UTILITY.

Data flow is that critical to our economy IRRESPECTIVE of "entertainment".

National security also relies on the INTERNET.

Hell local TOWNS and CITIES should outright own their own ISPs.

What we are SEEING is called:

Regulatory Capture.

Regulatory capture is a form of government failure that occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating.[1] When regulatory capture occurs, the interests of firms or political groups are prioritized over the interests of the public, leading to a net loss to society as a whole. Government agencies suffering regulatory capture are called "captured agencies".

Wikipedia

HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS are being spent by big corporations with FAKE comments spreading bold-faced propaganda. The NY attorney general's office is INVESTIGATING:

Schneiderman said in a tweet his office has been investigating a "massive scheme" over the last six months to "corrupt the FCC's comment process on net neutrality by impersonating 100,000s of real Americans."

LINK

SO in my MIND if your comments read like one of the fake, paid for ones... you are:

1.A shill
2. brainwashed
3. stupid
4. All of the above

a reply to: interupt42

I think encryption could solve that issue. Similar to how Tor nodes don't know what content they're passing, meshnets could pass encrypted content which is only decrypted at the end node.

That probably solves the liability issue.

a reply to: Aazadan

the encryotion methods arent there yet. tor can and has been compromised in the past.

besides that , even with quantum encryption it wont work. Again not because of technology but rather legal liability issues.

These are the same people that are undoing net neutrality and intimidating users to not share their wifi. How long before you think they will make it illegal to encrypt your data without APPROVED encryption?

again the hold up is not technical its political bs to appease the lobbyist.

a reply to: interupt42

I don't know. I think there will be a big battle over encryption in the next few years but I don't know when.

Personally, I take the view that encryption is a lockbox, speech, and a weapon so should be protected under the 1st, 2nd, and 4th. The problem I see, is that because corporations don't have constitutional protections the government can circumvent this issue by legislating the ability to break corporate encryption and circumvent all of our personal protections.

originally posted by: dug88
Being able to read and write is something you probably take for granted but if this was 400 years ago you would likely not be able to because the church decided who got to read and write. Try and picture how much freedom you would have if it were up to some company who got access to reading and writing. Being able to access the internet today is the equivalent of being able to read and write 400 years ago.

No, it's not something that I take for granted.

We were able to access the internet before Net Neutrality legislation, and we'll have access after. If not, we have libraries, and magazines, and books, and television, and myriad other ways to learn and communicate. Hyperbole and implications to slippery-slope arguments don't work very well with me.

Just because I choose not to scream that the sky is falling doesn't mean that I lack appreciation for the internet. But at the same time, I don't think that it's the government's place to tell private industry what to do with their product.

By giving ISP's sole control over all peoples communications you make them the same as guards in a prison.

So, what you're saying is that, by allowing a private company to conduct business as they deem appropriate in their quest to make their business grow and profit, that's akin to making them guards in a prison?

That could not be more ridiculous--you only make that argument because you're citing the worst-case scenario that didn't exist prior to Net Neutrality, and will not destroy the internet without it. If I'm wrong, we can revisit the issue in the future after such actions by ISProviders have been taken, but I'm not going to subscribe to your the-end-is-nigh mentality just yet.

And I don't think that I'll have to in the future.

And BTW, I don't have cable, I have a Roku. Are you going to complain that the government doesn't make Netflix and Hulu and the like all carry the same stuff and tell them that they can't remove programming from their line-up?

The government's job is not to force private industry to "be fair" to everyone, no matter how many slippery-slope arguments you want to throw out there.

Yes, I understand that there's exists potential for ISP companies to abuse their power over the consumer, but with the federal government, there exists the potential to abuse its power over ISP providers AND their customers. I have been following this issue for a long while now--your worst-case scenarios aren't going to persuade me, because it's nothing that I haven't heard and considered myriad times before.

Best regards--we can just agree to disagree.