Watch the FCC Vote On Net Neutrality Live At 10:30am Eastern 90
New submitter giltwist (1313107) writes "Very shortly, the FCC will begin its vote on proceeding 14-28 regarding Chairman Wheeler's highly contentious Net Neutrality proceeding. Senator Al Franken called Net Neutrality the free speech issue of our time. The vote begins at 10:30am Eastern time today. Make sure to watch it live at the FCC's live stream." "A particularly full agenda" is right; it's a rambunctious crowd, too.
Re:Irony? (Score:3, Insightful)
Nonsense. The cable companies have always known that the minor expense of giving the politicians favored access to the media is well worth it. Exhibit A: C-SPAN.
Re:Interesting? (Score:5, Insightful)
What is a shame is that Congress doesn't make decisions based on what is in the best interest of the general public.
If it comes down to it, a single large company making another billion in profit or millions of people getting better and lower cost internet access, I vote for the millions of people.
Shame Congress doesn't vote that way.
Re:Vibrant! (Score:2, Insightful)
You guys all have to remember that back when Clinton and Congress made that decision we were using dialup and broadband was barely even getting started. Back then there were literally hundreds of ISPs to choose from, since 90% of your home traffic went over a phone line. Odd that Ma Bell and AT&T didn't hardly get their knickers in a twist over that. Although congress was in the process of breaking them up at the time, so they probably had better shit to worry about.
But now we're all fucked because your only choice in broadband is essentially your cable company.
Re:It's official - it passed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Interesting? (Score:3, Insightful)
Congress votes for what it thinks is in the best interest of the general public.
The symptom you see is a result of corporations coming in and saying "we have 250,000 employees, and they benefit from this", which is then weighed against your one signature on a petition. There's also the bias in that no politician wants to be the guy who pushed a major employer out of the region, so there's a lot of pressure to accept the lesser of two evils between "my constituents lose their jobs" and "everybody (mostly outside my region) has slightly worse Internet service". Given that perspective, the politician naturally has a duty to vote for the greater good of their constituents.
We're not losing to the big corporations... we're winning a Pyrrhic victory.
Re:It's official - it passed (Score:4, Insightful)
.
This was destined to pass from the day it was first proposed. All the public commenting was merely window dressing to make it appear as if there were public involvement. The ISPs control the Internet (and apparently the FCC) in the United States, and this is their way of assuring they will continue to do so and profit handsomely in the process.
Re:Interesting? (Score:5, Insightful)
"if only there were some way for the common people to decide what we should do"
That's called the free market.
If it were left entirely to the free market, net neutrality would have been gone years ago. Careful what you wish for.
Help us Google Fiber! You're our only hope (Score:5, Insightful)
Media fail (Score:4, Insightful)
The media said that "net neutrality" fast lanes passed. Morons. We need media neutrality, too.