Single Group Dominates Second Round of Anti Net-Neutrality Comment Submissions 218
New submitter aquadood writes: According to the Sunlight Foundation's analysis of recent comment submissions to the FCC regarding Net Neutrality, the majority (56.5%) were submitted by a single organization called American Commitment, which has "shadowy" ties to the Koch brothers' network. The blog article goes on to break down the comments in-depth, showing a roughly 60/40 split between those against net neutrality and those for it, respectively.
I'd expect Fawkes masks to start making statements (Score:5, Insightful)
If there's ever a time - it's times like this. Koch brothers' evil and the bullshit associations they support, typically lobbying for the opposite of what their names indicate (ie. "America" or "US" or "Family" combined with "Freedom" or "Prosperity" or "Commitment" or some other similar term) and the public would be greatly served by having these organisations dismantled, only, the people need some help -- the lack of transparency and lack of media coverage of these types of incidents means the majority, whose votes 'could' count, are too often taken for a ride.
Re:I'd expect Fawkes masks to start making stateme (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed! Who could be against the FCC regulating the internet? Nutters and Koch brothers types, that's who! I look forward to the FCC getting it's mitts deeply into the regulation of the interntet. I mean, how else can I be sure of getting cheap, fast pings for my games if not by getting the feds involved? My freedom to ping REQUIRES laws, bureaucrats, agents, and harsh penalties to ANYONE who fucks with my pings!
Given that all a lack of the FCC being involved has got you is a Comcast/Time Warner monopoly, prices 2-3 times as high as the other side of the atlantic, service an order of magnitude slower than the other side of the atlantic, and double charging both the sender and receiver for data... YES, FUCKING AMEN, WHO THE FUCK COULD BE AGAINST GETTING THE FCC INVOLVED!
Re: I'd expect Fawkes masks to start making statem (Score:2)
State PUCs regulate local internet fees, if the FCC does go after Net Neutrality they still won't regulate local prices for Internet access... Or connection speed... Or anything else you rant about.
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Um.... I have 100mbit fiber to my apartment. It costs me about $25usd per month - fully unlimited traffic, no DMCA notices - ever, and includes IPTV with too many channels/movies (mostly Chinese, however).
I pay very little in taxes/fees, to boot. Thanks, corporate shill #108277.
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Um, "Rick in China" you are a privileged Westerner living the life of the urban elite in a third world country. Your Internet is effectively subsidized on the backs of a few hundred million Chinese peasants.
Of course, that's what you want for the US too: you want to be a member of an educated, well connected urban elite, and screw the rest of the country. I'd call you a "communist shill", but I doubt you're even smart enough for that. You're just greedy, privileged, and ignorant.
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The only place you get cheap internet access over here in Europe are places that are subsidised or in large cities. I can also get internet access for around $30 US but that is for ADSL
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Yet, the UK generally ranks slightly below the US in average connection speeds.
http://www.netindex.com/downlo... [netindex.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... [wikipedia.org]
So, you got lucky, and other people apparently got unlucky.
Even if we look at your individual situation, the question is: what's your salary relative to what you would be making in the US, what taxes do you pay, what other fees do you pay (e.g., TV licensing fees), etc.? And is the UK really an example of a highly regulated system, or is it more like the US and you
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Small town (~15k population):
I pay $14 for 100Mbps up/down via fiber.
Relatives in the same town also have fiber, from a different ISP, (even using a different fiber network(!)) for about the same price.
IIRC there are actually 3 different fiber lines used to connect this small place.
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Depending on where you are, yes, broadband can get that high, because of "bundling." Cable companies in the US offer the "triple play" of internet, TV and phone in a bundle that costs you well over $100 for even the slowest internet connection they offer. Then when you ask "how much for just internet?" the price often turns out to be as high, or, inexplicably, even higher if you refuse the other two services. because, capitalism free markets MURICA.
I don't know the details anymore, because I'm lucky eno
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Plus still paying ~ 30% of income in taxes when income tax, property tax, sales tax, use fees, etc. are all considered.
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I've paid $60/month for 60 Mbps in Silicon Valley, and $30/month for 50 Mbps in a smaller town, and I always take Internet-only.
Perhaps you need to do a bit more shopping. Because "capitalism free markets MURICA".
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and youre projecting again.
the liar and fool is you, as nothing you just stated is factual.
most europeans do not have lower incomes than the US. they have higher, and they have a higher purchasing power parity.
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You can't even be bothered to do minimal fact checking:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... [wikipedia.org]
The only European countries with higher median household incomes than the US are Luxembourg, Norway, and Switzerland. And taken as a whole, Europe or the EU are dismal. You can reach similar conclusions by looking at individual disposable incomes, or GDP per capita, or any number of other measures.
That st
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The last solution is by design not possible for everybody. The solution no1 does not always work. State on the other hand is the only force that helps capitalism kind of work. Without state
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Sure there is: you don't give them your money.
The only corporations that actively "suck you dry" are the corporations that the government gives artificial monopolies to.
Somalia: anarchy.
Capitalism: state guarantees free markets, equality before the law, and freedom from physical violence, and the rest is
Re:I'd expect Fawkes masks to start making stateme (Score:5, Informative)
I live in the Netherlands. In your opinion a far left, almost commie country if I read your comment well. We used to have a good health insurance system, good public transport and an excellent mail service, all state financed. Until some of our right wing bastards decided to leave all that to 'the market'. Services would improve and tariffs would decrease under the pressure of all the competitors in The Great Free Market, is what they told us.
The result? As to be expected with companies trying to deliver the least possible service for the highest amount of money (which IS the thing 'Free Market" is all about), health insurance prices are rising through the ceiling while coverage goes through the floor, public transport is more crappy than ever with higher prices and mail delivery goes the same way.
The blessings of Free Market and its Invisible Hand, as touted by right wing parties, are only blissfull for the Big Companies and their filthy rich owners. And taxes? Gone up anyway, except for the richest.
So, i will take a bit higher taxes in exchange for better services anytime. Here we see what your Holy Free Market does, and very, very few people like it. (Why they keep believing the shit the right wingers here spout and keep voting for them against their own interest keeps baffling me,)
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We used to have a good health insurance system, good public transport and an excellent mail service, all state financed.
And also a democracy, if I recall correctly. One wonders why the electorate thought it a good idea to vote for those darn ravishers of near perfection.
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It couldn't possibly be because they were dissatisfied with the existing situation.
No, they were not. They were duped by parties who promised to do A but did Z when elected. Those parties told everyone that everything had to be left to the market by command of the European Union, while they knew that not to be the case. It was pushed through by the right wing parties with the help of some semi left wing and centre parties, where the first mentioned mostly talk left wing at election time but act right wing inbetween elections and support the right wing shit.
Problem is the electorate is so
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If a party promises (before elections) to keep things as they are and to defend the good things and people vote for that party based on those promises, the voters clearly signal that they are happy with things as they are. If said party turns around a 180 degrees after elections, their voters are duped.
If the voters had been a bit smarter they could have seen it coming but said party *had* a lot of traditional voters. It is now (rightfully) going down the drain. Alas, the party will probably have two more y
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Or long-disproved ideas. Sure, welfare is great! Everyone can just take money from this wonderful system forever and no one ever has to pay any more for it.
Re:I'd expect Fawkes masks to start making stateme (Score:5, Interesting)
Second all of that from Germany.
Energy companies - privatized. Prices have gone up, service is still good mostly because of government regulations, the market is now largely dominated by less than 5 big energy companies. Only recently thanks to renewable energy have smaller, local players re-emerged.
Public transport - long distance privatized. Service down, delays up, lots of smaller stations have been closed and lines discontinued, government subsidizes the whole thing still.
Telecommunications - privatized. Looked like a success for many years, but now that the old monopolist has stopped being a dominant player (it wasn't broken down like AT&T), service is going down the drain and prices are secretly climbing (base fees are low, nobody dares being the first to raise them, but they're all adding all kinds of additional charges, reducing service for the base fee so you have to buy a higher contract for the same, etc.)
Pensions - being dismantled as we look. We had a great state pension system. It survived both world wars and managed to pay out pensions even when the rest of Germany was flat broke. Heck, even in the few years after WW2 when Germany didn't exist at all and it was just an occupied zone. Now the state pension system is being systematically dismantled by politics while private pension funds and insurances work hard to convince you that you absolutely need them or you'll be poor when you are old.
The examples go on and on and on. In the end, it is quite clear that what my old philosophy teacher in school said was right: capitalism, communism, fascism, extremism, islamism, doesn't matter, be aware of everything that ends with -ism.
The free market is a cute idea and it works great for trade. But don't make it a religion. Many human endeavours are not trade and not suitable to be treated like that. I hope we all agree that things like art and love fall into that category, so we should be open to at least discussing if health, transportation and communications might fall into it as well.
The same is true for communism. The idea that every is equal is great for politics, and a lot of what's wrong in the west today is caused by our hidden abolishing of the "one vote per citizen" rule by allowing campaign financing to dominate the results instead of votes. But again there are lots of areas where treating everyone the same is not the right approach. Education, science, sports and business are all places where it's good if people start out with equal chances, but as their talents and abilities emerge, they need to be treated differently. And planned economy has been pretty much proved to be a disaster, too.
In every other -ism you will always find at least one small grain of truth. Maybe even ISIS has a right idea in its idiology somewhere. The problem is always if you think you can explain the whole world by one truth, one interpretation, one approach.
But religion doesn't built space ships, and science doesn't write operas, and capitalism doesn't create families.
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Energy companies - privatized. Prices have gone up, service is still good mostly because of government regulations, the market is now largely dominated by less than 5 big energy companies. Only recently thanks to renewable energy have smaller, local players re-emerged.
Freaking out over Fukushima couldn't have helped with your energy prices, I imagine. I (also) very highly doubt that privatization is beneficial to energy/utilities and telecom, but I admit there are always other factors to consider. For example, in the Greater Phoenix area in Arizona, my water, sewer, trash, and electricity were served by private companies, and bills were sky high and rising. In Alabama, despite being an equally conservative state, I have public utilities and pay way less, despite havin
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So you switched from nationalisation of certain industries to taxpayer-funded cronyism? Thats a huge step backwards in the eyes of every libertarian, ancap, capitalist, anarchist everywhere, ever
That's an assumption. There could be multiple reasons behind this and you and I do not live through the changes (or in the country). I wouldn't assume that is cronyism because that is a huge jump. Anyway, the GP hits the nail in the head.
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The reasons they were privatized and the like was that the other wasn't sustainable
Get a clue before you enter a discussion. Many of the companies that were privatized were doing as good or even better than the private companies that replace them today. That doesn't always mean they are or were profitable - for some things such as public transport or universities or garbage collection maybe the benefit to society should be the important factor and not ROI and shareholder value.
You are repeating the ignorant blabbering of typical right-wing americans who think that anything that's not cut-
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Ah, yes, this is obvious to us in Europe, who have lived privatisation of public services. Here's an anecdote to illustrate how these things go:
I used to live on a small country lane outside London. The roads, water pipes etc are supposed to be maintained by the local council. In the past, the work was carried out by people who were employed by the council, but then, along came privatisation with the golden promise of cost savings. Now the work is all carried out by private companies. Strangely, though, the
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Here in Europe, we used to have this little thing called 'Solidarity'. Sharing the costs that everybody risked to have to make and yes, some of it (or hopefully most of it) you'd never need. But IF you came in a situation, it would not cost you two arms, a leg and half your ribcage, but you'd be covered and everybody would be happy.
The American inspired 'ME, ME, ME, MEEEEE!!!!'-culture is taking over now, and the total costs are going up for everybody (as I said in my previous post), while service levels ar
Re:I'd expect Fawkes masks to start making stateme (Score:5, Insightful)
In the states, health insurance skyrocketed after obamacare forced insurance companies to carry high risk people as well as the 'rights' demanded by special interest 'social justice' groups that the rest of us must now pay for.
A fast search led me to factcheck.org where they disagree with you. Anecdotally I know of not one single case where this is true. Everyone I know got a better deal under Obamacare. Some stories are remarkable how much Obamacare helped them. This is personal experience only. But after a decade of alarming inflation of health care premiums, we are finally seeing it slow (4%).
The Affordable Care Act has it's problems. It could be fixed. But return to lifetime caps, dumping high risk clients, & no coverage for existing conditions, no thanks. & yes, we did have "skyrocketing premiums" regardless. Become a cancer survivor & your opinion will change.
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Where I work, everyone's health care went up about 40% on average last month, with everyone getting either equal or worse coverage than they had previously. I think the ACA was a necessity, but premiums certainly did spike for a lot of people.
Re:I'd expect Fawkes masks to start making stateme (Score:5, Interesting)
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I can put you in touch with 3 people that I can think of off the top of my head who's insurance went up by over 100% due to Obamacare. They're business owners who buy their own insurance. Once again the Democrats figured out a way to screw small business.
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...Says the AC...
It's not 'I'll pay more if someone else worries about it', It is 'we all CARE about each other and we all contribute to each other's wellbeing'. But that concept is apparently totally strange to right-wingers, who have only one thought: ME, ME, ME! and their only concern is about Me, Myself and I.
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...Says the AC...
It's not 'I'll pay more if someone else worries about it', It is 'we all CARE about each other and we all contribute to each other's wellbeing'. But that concept is apparently totally strange to right-wingers, who have only one thought: ME, ME, ME! and their only concern is about Me, Myself and I.
Now be generous, they're just operating out of Enlightened Self-Interest.
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The reason the "free Market" is being tried in your socialist utopia is THE UNSUSTAINABLE COST of your little paradise
You know, if something works for 60-80 years, maybe it's worth dropping the "unsustainable" tag.
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You know, if something works for 60-80 years, maybe it's worth dropping the "unsustainable" tag.
While you're at it, I'd say, given how much less the per capita debt of the nations in question have risen compared to American debt (presumably the bastion of the "free Market" the AC was referring to), maybe it's worth dropping the "cost" tag too.
But really, you shouldn't be responding to the obviously deranged. Arbitrary capitalization of words, arbitrary scare quotes everywhere, and spamming all caps words? Deranged.
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the state never has to answer to the market
1) the service is run like a utility, you pay for services through monthly bill, not through taxes
2) you dont have to sign up for the service
3) the state is only unaccoutnable if you choose not to particpate in this thing we have called democracy.
4) News flash: Comcast exists right now in market that is NOT controlled by the state.
you are an ignorant fool who didnt say one factual thing.
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The government gave Comcast/Time Warner a monopoly. Clearly we need more government to fix this.
In a way, you must, because it's an area where it is impossible to have a free market. You can't just have any mom-and-pop tearing up the street and peoples' to lay -their- cables which aren't really different from the competition's cables. We're talking about access to public and private property to lay utilities. By definition, that has to be limited.
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Just as fine as private industry did with work safety before OSHA, child labor/overtime/workers compensation before labor laws, and food safety before the FDA. They were really standup businesses back around 1900...
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Welcome to the party, comrade! In soviet amerika you care for obama!
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I'm not pro-either side's corporate bullshit. But this is a specific case in point about the Koch brothers and *their* evil deeds. They are trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public. I'm not making any statement here about the left being better, or worse, or the same - I'm commenting on this specific issue, on Net Neutrality and the fact that by deceiving the public, the Koch Brothers and other corporations end up victorious - and appearing to be on the 'right' side of the public, no pun intended.
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You didn't mention raise taxes.
Why should that matter? Without some sort of financial discipline, it'd just be more money flushed down the drain.
This American is tired of the rightards false equivalences.
You're the one making the "rightard" equivalence between lowering spending and raising taxes.
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You may be too young to remember, but this "Congress has to learn to live within a budget" drumbeat has been going on since at least 1980.
This sort of thing has been going on at least since the dawn of the US. For example, the earliest period consisted of paying down the debt from two wars, the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 (both were fights with the UK).
So, the "right" appears to be very good at reducing taxes, but not very good at reducing spending. The "left" is not very good at reducing spending, but at least they seem to realize that income has to rise to meet spending.
Except if we increase income, then they'll realize once again in a few years that income has to rise to meet spending. There's this destructive pattern of behavior.
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Also, inflation is generally responsive to unemployment rates, rather than tax rates.
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You know what people who don't pay much income tax pay? FICA taxes. Add the deceptively named employer's contribution (it still comes out of the employer's payroll funds, but with a bit of sleight of hand people don't notice) to the amount on the pay stub and they're paying about 15% in Federal taxes. (This goes down some as income goes up, because half of that isn't subject to income tax, but if people don't owe income tax they get no relief there.) Warren Buffet has paid less of his income than that
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and that costs money
It's worth remembering here that what's being paid for is a huge amount of corruption. That costs money too.
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I'm happy to cede world dominance to another country. I don't feel like my "nationalistic ego" is so damned large that I have to sink the country's economy just to ensure that my country is 'running things' or whatever.
Curious (Score:3)
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If there is some statistic that the majority of the population can look at without understanding how it got that way - and it indicates support for the decision, then the decision seems more legitimate than if it receives no statistical support but was made anyways.. ie. easier to defend from a political/court of public opinion perspective.
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There is no evidence they "spammed" anything. All the analysis found is that a large number of submissions used some common language.
"shadowy" ties to the Koch brothers' network. (Score:2)
Because concrete ties can't fuel conspiracy theories and pry open wallets.
Re: "shadowy" ties to the Koch brothers' network. (Score:2)
They are advocating against a gov't policy, not a candidate - in fact you could say they are 'educating' people about a given policy, much like any number of tax-exempt advocacy groups do...
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Translation: i dont like the facts, so I'm going to accuse you of bias, as if that allows me to ignore inconvenient facts.
Let me see if I understand this... (Score:2, Insightful)
After a comprehensive analysis of the comments provided to the FCC regarding net neutrality, it was found that a great percentage were form letters based on one of some 30 templates one organization made available... So what?
No one is sledging the comments were not submitted falsely - each comment represents a valid comment.
The organizer of the form letter campaign gave people some thirty choices to find a message that resonates with them - each template represented different reasons to oppose net neutralit
Re: Let me see if I understand this... (Score:2)
Typo:
Should have been:
No one is aledging the comments were submitted falsely - each comment represents a valid comment.
Conservatives mostly don't like the involvement... (Score:4, Informative)
... of the FCC in the process. That is their primary beef. They see it as an encroachment of federal regulation which they're reflexively against.
This said, if you want the conservatives on your side there is a way to do it while getting effectively to net neutrality.
The issue is that we have a few large companies that are monopolizing everything. Why is that? Mostly because it is almost impossible to lay the last mile of cable from a regulation stand point. Cities, counties, and sometimes even states put taxes, regulations, and conditions on laying cable on the last mile.
Laying backbone cable is much easier. I think I saw an estimation that over 80 percent of US backbone bandwidth is laying idle. The issue is the last mile and the problem is government interference. LOCAL government interference. Not federal.
If you pitch to conservatives "hey, you're allowing monopolistic companies to rob you because local corrupt government officials are getting bribed to shut out competitors" then you're going to have an easier time getting conservatives on board.
If what you want is a better and freer internet... then this gets you that. With expanded competition, the big ISPs will not be able to play these games. Mom and pop ISP providers will sprout up like mushrooms in any area with an issue. Yes, running an ISP is an investment but not nearly as big of a deal as many people think.
If you only serve a given neighborhood then the costs aren't that big a deal. Why does a new ISP automatically have to service the entire city? Does the local sandwich shop need to open 50 locations to be able to operate? Obviously not. You open one franchise in one area that you feel you can turn a profit in and you expand from there if you are successful.
THAT is what the future of ISPing should be. Local ISPs that run last mile internet service in a few square blocks, cut their teeth on that, and then expand to neighboring blocks as they recoop their investment.
You don't need mega billion dollar corporations to make this work.
Right now, look at the cost of fiber cable. The raw wholesale cost of fiber. Look up what a fiber switch costs to serve a couple hundred users. This is the sort of price structure you are looking at and it is comparable to what you find in a lot of other small businesses.
Pitch this and conservatives will be all over it. If instead you say "we need the federal government to come in and regulate everything for the greater good"... you're going to run shivers up the backs of conservatives and they're going to fight you reflexively.
Why do we need to do it this way? Won't it be better this other way? Think about it.
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Without regulated net neutraility, your concept would never work, since the big carriers could just pick favorites among the little guys and dictate who actually gets to run fiber into your neighborhood. Yeah, other companies could, but they're going to get just a trickle of bandwidth.
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The big companies in this case are not the ISPs giving you trouble. They're the backbone ISPs. Completely different culture and mentality.
What is more, what you're not getting about the backbone ISPs is that they're not as heavily controlled as to when and where they can lay cable. As a result there is competition there already. They already know that if they mess with the flow someone else will run cable next to them and they'll lose.
Competition works.
Look at your shoes. Did they need to pass regulations t
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Competition works. Look at your shoes. Did they need to pass regulations to make your shoes not terrible? No. Competition did it. You as a consumer check out the shoes in the store and you only buy the ones that are worth your money. You don't buy the ones that are bad. The same principle can work in almost infinite applications.
If you want the analogy to serve internet....what if the only shoe providers in the whole country were Nike, Reebok,and Adidas, and depending on where you lived in the country, you could only buy one brand of shoes - and you weren't allowed to shop online or travel to buy a competitor's pair?
What kind of shoes do you think you would be wearing then?
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... I feel like you're not reading anything I've said but that I made a shoe analogy. Which is very frustrating.
*takes a deep breath*
*breaths out slowly*
The thesis I presented was that through greater competition these net neutrality issues would go away. Which means you're not just buying from one company but rather lots and lots of them. So my analogy holds. Please re-read/read for the first time my arguments above. I don't know if I can contain an outburst if you do that again.
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Pointing out that the government has regulations on everything is not evidence that those regulations are required.
Re:Conservatives mostly don't like the involvement (Score:5, Insightful)
Mostly because it is almost impossible to lay the last mile of cable from a regulation stand point.
Mostly because it makes a fucking lot of sense to not dig up the street every time someone switches to a new ISP.
Re:Conservatives mostly don't like the involvement (Score:4)
thats not even a valid logical argument. after you talked about last mile, he also talked about last mile, specifically the from the box to the house, and then you accuesed him of being stupid by talking about NOT-last mile cable laying and some stupid failed car analogy. JFC you are stupid. his whole point is that it make no sense to redo the cabling anytime you switch proviers, no more than it makes sense to dig up your driveway and connect to a "different" road if libertarians ever got their "private/subscription road market" fantasies fulfilled. its simply another area that is best served by a single entity because it makes for a natural monopoly and the costs to consumers of trying to create a "market" for them are out of proportion to any benefit recieved from doing so.
but since you want to talk about that: barring the invention of teleportation there pretty much is only one way to put things in the ground, and it involves digging a hole.
They already use conduit in many places, and horizontal drilling and cable pulling, buts its limited in practicality because of the magnitude of force needed to pull/push cable over long distance would break the cable. which means the access points cant be very far apart. and they have to route around other underground infrastructure. they cant just go in straight lines for long distances. and you cant push/pull around corners (again: breaks the cable).
Idiots like you shouldn't enter speculative discussions.
Take thine own advice knave.
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Who said anything about redoing the cabling every time you change providers you complete fucking retard? That is a CFR by the way. :D
The only cabling that would need to be redone would be at your house where in one cable was unplugged and another was plugged in instead. OH NOES! It might take all of 10 minutes! RUN AND HIDE!!! THE HUMANITY!!! AAAAHHHH!!!
Seriously though... what the fuck do you think you're talking about. If I have a bundle of cables going through a street conduit or over on a pole... and I
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Who said anything about redoing the cabling every time you change providers you complete fucking retard?
I did, because that's what your ignorant argument would lead to.
Situation now, in almost all homes: There is one cable going to the nearest street node. This is the famous "last mile".
You want that cable owned by the ISP, which means for every home where the inhabitants are not customers of the current cable owner, either the new ISP needs to buy the cable, or put down a new one, since these are the only two ways in which he can be owner of the last mile.
If they switch ISP again, this repeats.
If a new ISP c
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It's a particularly-failed analogy, as the roads required to let the cars go back and forth.... once again, require some form of local government.
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Right, because there is no other possible way to lay cable then the way they've always laid cable.
If you actually could re-invent the cable-putting industry, you'd not be posting in /., you'd be busy making your first billion. (you'd already have your first million)
Any place that had frequent changes to the cabling would either have an accessible conduit system or run the cables on poles.
You'd have to install the conduits first, which means digging up all the streets. A hunch tells me that is even less likely to happen in the near future.
Poles are not really practical in the places that the majority of the population in the west lives in. These places are called "cities". Cities are where the money is in telecommunications, s
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Bull.
Conservatives do not care and have never cared about restricting monopolies.
Only one side of the spectrum has taken the position that restricting monoplies in order to promote competition is "punishing success".
Protecting the interests of entrenched corporations is a conservative position, regardless of the party doing it.
Breaking up monpolies to promote the concept that "anyone can make it in the land of opportunity" by fostering competition and breaking up monpolies has always been and will always be
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Your blind zealotry is counter productive and renders you incompetent in this or any other policy discussion.
Try again with less koolaid.
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From what I can see, conservatives mostly don't like FCC involved because Obama is for net neutrality.
Otherwise, your comment is excellent.
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So Obama should remain for it for another few weeks, but once the new Congress is in session, be opposed to it. He should also be against Obamacare and against immigration. Republicans won't know what to do.
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I'd love to see Obama do that... the shock of all the republicans suddenly giving him everything he wants would be pretty priceless.
Republicans aren't opposing obama because he is obama... they are opposing him because they do not like his policies.
Suggesting otherwise ignores that republican policies on these matters haven't changed remarkably in decades which is long before Obama was even alive much less in politics.
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I'm afraid that is just the cognitive dissonce talking.
Obama likes to say that people only disagree with him because he's black or something equally offensive. But if anyone else were in his position doing what he's doing then the same political factions would be opposing him.
Republicans for example has been opposing moves like Obamacare for well over 60 years. Yet Obama suggests that republicans are only taking this position out of racism. It is intellectually unsupportable.
The same is true of the FCC acti
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I haven't been paying attention, but I've never heard Obama mention racism as a reason for opposition to his policies. Got a cite? Some people do blame racism, and I think some opposition is probably racist in nature (although I can't tell which is and which isn't). Also, Republicans have been pushing things like Obamacare for a long time. It's similar to Romneycare, for example, and 1970s Republicans had similar ideas. Now that it exists, and was pushed through by Democrats, Republicans are attacking
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Why is it that I'm the only person that knows how to use google?
Like... seriously. I typed this into google:
obama says race
And I got this:
âoeThereâ(TM)s no doubt that thereâ(TM)s some folks who just really dislike me because they donâ(TM)t like the idea of a black President,â Obama said.
http://www.newyorker.com/magaz... [newyorker.com]
The implication from the article is that obama's poll numbers are falling because he's black. Which is weird because the demographics of the country didn't shift that
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Sorry if that quote from the new yorker is a bit garbled. they were using some odd characters.
This should be sanitized:
âoeThereâ(TM)s no doubt that thereâ(TM)s some folks who just really dislike me because they donâ(TM)t like the idea of a black President,â Obama said.
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and third time's the charm...
"There's no doubt that there are some folks who just really dislike me because they don't like the idea of a black President," Obama said.
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You're confusing last mile connections with... some bullshit you made up.
I can get a line brought to a neighborhood from the backbone. It could cost a million or a couple hundred thousand... or substantially less. It depends on how far away it is from the neighborhood I want to wire. Ideally you should pick one close to where ever it coming from so you pay as little as possible initially. But once that has happened, I have all the resources at that point to wire the neighborhood. That is if I have the fiber
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Flip that around. Competition itself ensures net neutrality. If I have five to a dozen ISPs to choose from at any location then why would I choose the ISP not offering net neutrality? It is the last mile providers that are dicking with the data. The backbone providers already embrace net neutrality.
The reason the last mile providers are dicking with the data is that they buy bandwidth just like their customers from an ISP in most cases. And that ISP links them to the global web. And the last mile ISP can ma
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As to regulation being required for competition... yes, but the regulation required is that companies do not literally commit acts of violence, contracts are honored, and advertizing is reasonably faithful to the actual product.
Which is something we have for every company already.
The issue with ISPs is not lack of regulation but too much regulation. Again, at the local level. It is almost impossible to lay last mile cable.
That is the issue.
Make that easy from a regulatory stand point and this issue will go
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Except that we really can't make laying last-mile connectivity easy from a regulatory standpoint.
Every new cable or fiber requires either space on utility poles, which are limited and not present everywhere, or digging up the neighborhood, which isn't something we want just anybody to be able to do. You likely don't want people to dig up your street or your lawn because they just got a bank loan, or watch low-cost workers careless enough to damage power and telephone lines or gas, water, and sewer pipes.
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Again, you're exaggerating the disruption and it isn't helping your argument.
There is plenty of room for fiber to be run on the poles. And in any area where more people want to run fiber then there is space on the poles, then upgrade to a conduit system.
Until that happens, you can just bid the space on the poll out the same way you bid anything else out. How does the sandwich shop guy get commercial space in the mall? He contacts the land lord and inquires as to the price of a lease.
Do the same thing with t
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so far as i know burning man is made up of hippies not libertarians.
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Baseless insults by anonymous cowards... You wound me, sir.
If you presume to judge me, then actually form a falsifiable argument and do me the small courtesy of using your real FAKE name. I'm not asking for your actual name on your driver's license. But your handle on this board would be the least you can offer given I am offering that myself.
highly tendentious language (Score:2)
What they are saying is that a lot of letters sent in to comment on net neutrality have been derived from a small set of sample letters. That doesn't mean they represent astroturfing, it merely means that a lot of people who sent in letters founds those sample letters to be a good starting point and in agreement with their views.
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Yes, I know. It's "News for Nerds". People here hate the MIT engineers advocating fiscal prudence and social liberalism, and love the sociopathic Hungarian Nazi collaborators and manipulator of the global financial system.
The system is open to gaming (Score:2)
Neither party in congress understands the problem now.
Bunch of Friggin Idiots. Blind leading the Blind.
I was tempted to give a history lesson, but this isn't the audience.
SO:
garbage in
garbage out.
Re: The system is open to gaming (Score:2)
I'm certain the commissioners will each read every one of the million plus comments submitted before deciding what to do... If not, why ask for the comments in the first place?
They could have just organized a poll.
Shadowy? (Score:2)
Isn't that a synonym for suspected but without evidence?
Just so we're on this front, I think that aliens have shadowy ties to the Egyption pyramids. I heard one of those pyramids has a weapon that can destroy planets. Maybe I'm thinking of the death star and its shadowy connections to the Empire.
We saw exactly this with ICANN (Score:2)
This happened during the formation of ICANN. They wet with "the majority".
It's over 50% for a reason.
Anon can't really do much about this I'm afraid.