No Matter What Happens With Net Neutrality, an Open Internet Isn't Going Anywhere, Says Former FCC Chairman (recode.net) 177
Michael K. Powell, a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, writing for Recode: With an ounce of reflection, one knows that none of this will come to pass, and the imagined doom will join the failed catastrophic predictions of Y2K and massive snow storms that fizzle to mere dustings -- all too common in Washington, D.C. Sadly, rational debate, like Elvis, has left the building. The vibrant and open internet that Americans cherish isn't going anywhere. In the days, weeks and years following this vote, Americans will be merrily shopping online for the holidays, posting pictures on Instagram, vigorously voicing political views on Facebook and asking Alexa the score of the game. Startups and small business will continue to hatch and flourish, and students will be online, studiously taking courses. Time will prove that the FCC did not destroy the internet, and our digital lives will go on just as they have for years. This confidence rests on the fact that ISPs highly value the open internet and the principles of net neutrality, much more than some animated activists would have you think. Why? For one, because it's a better way of making money than a closed internet.
better way for who (Score:4, Insightful)
the ecommerce sites or the ISPs, I would think a closed internet is better for the ISPs
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A closed Internet is only better for ISPs and (possibly just in the short term) manufacturers of network equipment, nobody else. That's why all other businesses are pro-net-neutrality.
And the only difference it will make at the ISPs is the size of the CEO's next megayacht.
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Replace target with ebay and you have the truth. Target is no competitor to Amazon.
Re:better way for who (Score:5, Insightful)
I would think a closed internet is better for the ISPs
Evidently they think so too, in spite of this guy, because they seem to be willing to buy a government official and motivate him to completely ignore the majority voice repeatedly, and just happen to have a president who is favorable to the whole fiasco. Usually you don't try to kill a thing that you value significantly.
What he's not saying about this future, and maybe doesn't see, is that yeah, probably the "open internet" isn't going anywhere. But its price structure certainly will change. And yeah, some people will pay, but many will be unable to. And we'll be deciding which of those activities he lists up there that we will pay for, and which we will not in favor of other less good options that ISPs push for us. They absolutely will push for their own broadcast TV options, it makes technical sense (for them) to be able to better utilize their network without investing in it. I don't see any way they won't do that. Similarly, anything that becomes a significant fraction of their network usage, they're going to try to price out.
The irony is that the argument they use is net neutrality is hurting investment...but they actually don't want investment anyway. It makes business sense, but most of us do not care at all about their profitability and would happily replace their business with something else that delivers what we want.
Not to mention public reaction to these pricing schemes is going to be increased usage of VPNs, to the point where that is our default network. This will either end up driving internet prices way up, or beget a lot of ISP induced regulation to forbid us from doing this. THe net result is we can expect a higher latency, more expensive, less functional network than we had before.
Local government issue (Score:2)
I'm sorry if some people only have one ISP to choose from, but it is a local governance issue. Your local government should be able to solve this, either by paying for their own wires or allowing competition. It is not the federal government that is granting monopolies on your internet access.
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How does that work with the ISPs lobby the state government to prevent those things. It is not an issue of the local players, it is of the cost to deploy.
Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
In the run up to a very large shopping season, wouldn't it be terrible if all of a sudden Amazon was slow?
People also usually have time off, and Netflix is entertainment, it would really suck if that was slow to.
Good thing you can purchase the special ISP provided "holiday package" to make sure that your surfing of Amazon and Netflix doesn't slow down over the holidays.
And hey, Amazon, Netflix, i'm afraid before we can offer this package to our serf's You're going to have to pay us, "benevolent ISP" about a billion dollars a month.
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I am less concerned about the likes of Amazon or even Netflix. But the new "disruptive" internet companies that come out, like Amazon or Netflix was decade(s) ago.
A small company out of nowhere makes a product that people likes, and soon gets popular, its popularity is starting to make a noticeable blip on the ISP bandwidth. So the ISP will throttle it down, unless it pays them. Or worse will keep them throttled down because it is in competition of its parents companies services. While gaining popularity
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I was just gonna say this.
Imagine what's going to happen when the first non-spying smart assistant comes out, one that rivals Echo and Siri and whatever the others are called. Amazon, Google, FB, and Apple will all be happy to pay the ISPs to throttle or block the relevant webpages and then deny them a place on the marketplaces of Amazon, Google, and Apple. Much like in China, you won't even get to the market unless the "party" approves of you first.
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Max Headroom - is that you?
More peak hours than off-peak hours (Score:2)
First, no ISP ever offers a 100mbs connection. They offer an "up to" 100mbs connection because they oversell their infrastructure and use some legalese to cover for inferior performance in peak usage times.
Which only encourages ISPs to define "peak usage times" as 5 AM to 1 AM in order to allow the network to run saturated instead of improving it. Comcast, for example, was caught saturating its Tata link most of the time [slashdot.org] seven years ago.
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But don't think you can go about hosting your website on that connection. They recommend at least purchasing their $80/m 250/250 and $10/m for
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Guess what, even Comcast needs subscribers to run and without them there is no business left.
Comcast is widely regarded as the most hated company in America. They are still in business because many of their subscribers have no other option.
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Or you read Greg Bears excellent story: "Queen of Angles" which happens to play in Los Angeles, too.
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strange (Score:1)
This confidence rests on the fact that ISPs highly value the open internet and the principles of net neutrality, much more than some animated activists would have you think. Why? For one, because it's a better way of making money than a closed internet.
I didn't know the former chairman of the FCC was Gary Busey.
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Neither did Gary Busey...
Wait... what? (Score:2)
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Hmm (Score:1)
What they describe sounds an *awful* lot like a common carrier. This is all madness, and maddening. You know they are desperate and this is a hugely important matter by the level of their deceit. They are mistaken if they believe our intelligence is down there in the gutter as well.
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Most Americans have a choice of ISPs. The choice is between Bell (Verizon, AT&T, etc) or Cable.
No, they don't. Most Americans have NO choice for high speed internet. 256kbps DSL from Verizon doesn't count as "high speed"
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That is an outright lie (Score:2)
Most Americans have a choice of ISPs. The choice is between Bell (Verizon, AT&T, etc) or Cable.
It is obvious, you dont live in America, or you are a paid shill.
You can not even say "a lot" have a choice. Most have NO CHOICE.
please go troll elsewhere.
Mike Powell, Not MBA (Score:5, Insightful)
No ISPs are managed by MBAs. They compete with other ISPs. It is so very tempting to squeeze 1$ more revenue this quarter, even if it means losing 3$ next year or 30 $ over the next decade. The managers know their stock options, the vesting schedule, the exercise price and bonus trigger stock price. Meeting that is of paramount importance for the C?O crowd. Getting 1$ more in their personal pay is a lot more important to them than causing 50$ worth of damage to the company and its long term assets. These managers have an average tenure of about 3 years. There are very very few managers who stick with the same company for decades.
If by chance one company decides to go for the long term play, Wall Street will immediately punish it. Its stock will plunge, its revenue will be compared to its competitors. The pressure is relentless and there is no way for a public company to recover. Moderate size companies will manipulate their stock price downwards, and make it attractive enough for Private Equity. Usually by dumping their insiders' stock and negative guidance in the quarterly calls. The true viability and strength will be disclosed to private investors, and once the public stock holders are paid off at the fire sale prices, the private equity firms will richly reward the executives who got them the plum. But these ISPs are too big for private equity. Even at fire sale prices, the market valuation would be so high it is off limits for private equity. Making them bankrupt intentionally would help them take it private, but bankruptcy is a public court managed affair, not the hush hush under the table dealings with private equity. So it is not likely to happen.
So it will be a race to the bottom. So they will race to the bottom. Some eagerly, some reluctantly, but it is to the bottom they will race.
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And this is why there is hardly any infrastructure build-out or aggressive replacement of copper with fiber in rural areas. Of course part of that is because they know their (current) competitors won't do it either, so they'll still be on a level playing field for less money.
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And this is why there is hardly any infrastructure build-out or aggressive replacement of copper with fiber in rural areas.
And certainly not because that build-out would cost millions of dollars in exchange for $5/month margins from the 37 customers that both want and can afford fiber. Nah....
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Afford fiber? It's cheaper than copper - it really is. And it seems better than losing customers to greater competition from cellular.
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Afford fiber? It's cheaper than copper - it really is.
I'd be fairly surprised if that's true across the board. If you're looking at a densely-populated metro area where the customer base more readily balances out the installation cost, that may well be the case. But in a sparsely-populated rural area, by definition rates are going to have to be higher unless the ISP improbably signs up to take a loss.
And it seems better than losing customers to greater competition from cellular.
A customer whose business likely will never recoup the capex required to keep that customer may not be a customer you want to try to keep.
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or the Universal Service Fund. Which is what it was created for.
Move out of the sticks (Score:2)
That's why they call it the sticks.
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Remember when the American ISPs and telecoms were given billions of taxpayer dollars to build out the infrastructure?
Yeah.
They already GOT their money and they squandered it.
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Remember when the American ISPs and telecoms were given billions of taxpayer dollars to build out the infrastructure?
Copper? They did.
Fiber? No, I can't say I remember that one on a national scale -- there have been some deals with local municipalities, but of course that's not what you're talking about in a thread about rural coverage, right?
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Kit Carson Telecom has run fiber all over their service area around Taos, New Mexico - much of it rural, and with numerous geographical obstacles (mountains, national forest land, pueblo land).
Um, looking at the coverage maps on Kit Carson's website [kitcarson.com], they've only run fiber to a handful of their service areas. I'll take a wild guess that most if not all of these are in more densely populated areas.
Rural fiber isn't hard at all if you have a good relationship with the incumbent electric utility and the lines are above ground.
And apparently it's even easier if you don't worry too much about customer service, network availability, or the other finer points of being an ISP [google.com].
Trust Us. (Score:2)
Unfortunately, corporations can't be trusted to do the right thing, even when it is in their own best interest. CEOs are so focused on short-term gains that they will frequently do things that hurt their own long-term money making ability. A closed interne
Lack of net neutrality in a nutshell (Score:2)
Americans will be merrily shopping online for the holidays, posting pictures on Instagram, vigorously voicing political views on Facebook and asking Alexa the score of the game.
Consequences of getting rid of net neutrality in a nutshell.
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For you, probably. Everything's fine, go consume something.
Dividing the advertising revenue (Score:2)
This is really a fight over advertising revenue. Google, Facebook get it now, the content providers and ISPs get nothing. The FCC has listened to the ISPs, and ignored the content providers. Very soon each consumer ISP will have a favored search engine, and will split the advertising revenue with that engine. Other engines won't be available. The preferred engine won't necessarily be the largest. Google is likely to assume it is too good to share, and the ISPs will turn to specialized firms that are willin
IT IS A TRAP !!! (Score:2)
Never the issue. (Score:2)
The issue was never, "this is going to bring the internet to it's knees" it was "this is going to allow ISPs to exploit and block services they compete with". You need only look at the past to see the services they have blocked and slowed in the past to know what the future holds.
Websites will have to pay,not customers (Score:2)
We already know what Comcast wants to do: charge the sites, such as Netflix for access to Comcast's customers.
The net result is not higher Internet bills, but higher Netflix and other bills.
Open Internet (Score:2)
Open Internet = You will always be able to make purchases from vendors approved by your service provider.
Others will not be so open....
We're on our way back to AOL's walled garden?
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With the difference being that you'll live in that walled garden, whether you like it or not. There will be no alternative allowed, even if you knew one.
Mr Powell is from the same mold (Score:2)
The COMMERCIAL internet is here to stay (Score:2)
The open internet where everyone can create, publish and share, even if he can't afford throwing more money than a honest person can make in a lifetime at ISPs, that will be lost.
But then, who needs that, right? As long as we still have Facebook and Instagram and the other bullshit for the masses to keep them entertained, who needs anything else?
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This is no debate. A debate is two people trying to find a solution either side can work with. There is no debate going on, it's already decided.
This said, the reason is simply that most ISPs are also content providers, i.e. cable TV providers, and they see this very lucrative portion of their portfolio become obsolete. And they fight this tooth and nail. Let's be honest here, cable TV is the license for printing money. Once the cables are in place, once the customer is set up, there is near zero maintenanc
Horse Shit. (Score:5, Informative)
This confidence rests on the fact that ISPs highly value the open internet
I had no idea that Michael Powell was a comedic writer.
ISPs highly value the ability to extort content providers that aren't fully owned subsidiaries of the ISP, or aren't other ISPs that can extort their fully owned subsidiary content provider.
ISPs highly value the idea of being able to charge other companies money for access to your eyeballs and ears, while also charging you money for access to content that the ISP doesn't actually own.
What a load of horse shit.
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This confidence rests on the fact that ISPs highly value the open internet
I had no idea that Michael Powell was a comedic writer.
ISP's are companies, and companies value only one thing - profit.
why would an open internet be part of that, when getting rid of net neutrality almost centrainly guarantees more profit (get from money from both customers and web sites).
maybe his post was pure sarcasm?
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Well, the argument could be made that the reason why these ISPs aren't still just trying to shovel Pay-per-view garbage down people's throats, and actually big enough to buy movie studios is because of the existence of the open Internet to begin with.
If the Internet wasn't open to begin with, AOL would still be king of the hill, and Comcast / Spectrum / Verizon / AT&T would still be trying to make their own AOL clones (or buying them) and trying to get people to switch. They'd still be paying loads of
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They still have a page. It doesn't say what it used to [archive.org]. They removed "Comcast doesn't prioritize Internet traffic or create paid fast lanes."
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I have yet to see a definition of NN that more than 2 people agreed on. Yours appears to differ from mine.
Michael Powell (Score:2)
He was also a terrible FCC chairman, with views not far away from Ajit Pai.
Of course the Internet will continue, new businesses will flourish, etc. with the removal of Net Neutrality. However, it will slowly degrade over time until customers are so fed up with bad performance and availability outages that they will be clamoring for premium packages that miraculously remove all of the delays and outages to certain popular sites.
Powell and Pai are both morons.
Values (Score:2)
"This confidence rests on the fact that ISPs highly value the open internet and the principles of net neutrality"
Well there's a huge steaming pile of bullshit if ever I saw one.
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Considering your name, I'd have to defer to you as the subject matter expert.
Remember HBO Go on PSN through Comcast? (Score:2)
I know it was a small thing, but it was a thing that frustrated me for quite some time:
http://forums.xfinity.com/t5/Stream-TV-App/HBO-Go-on-PlayStation-3-amp-PlayStation-4/td-p/2838840
For a while, Comcast was blocking access to HBO Go on Playstations. They were very clear on that being a business decision. So I paid Comcast, I paid HBO, and I paid Sony, but I wasn't able to use the services I was paying for the way they were intended. A quote from Comcast on the matter:
All - Thanks for your patience while this deal was worked.
As mentioned earlier, we want to bring our content to as many platforms as we can, but these are business deals that need to be negotiated and sometimes it can take time to come to agreeable terms.
In other words, they won't offer the s
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No faith (Score:2)
Reminds me of another bold prediction... (Score:2)
Peace in our time! Says former UK Prime Minster Neville Chamberlain
If the new ruling won't change anything... (Score:2)
Then why do it?
Why push so hard and expensively lobby for years and years on end if it's no change at all?
We can get it back (Score:2)
Efforts (Score:2)
The Difference (Score:2)
What he doesn't apparently get is that while yes, all of those activities will continue to happen. But, now the ISPs will be maximizing profits (as all good businesses should), by increasing prices as much as they believe they can, and coming out with a variety of tiered services that cost more. They'll also be double charging...not just the consumer, but the providers as well, on the same bits.
These are local monopolies, and need to be treated as public utilities. There is NO competition.
Poster boy for Washington Revolving Door (Score:2)
Michael Powell, former FCC Chairman and now current president and CEO of National Cable & Telecommunications Association, claims we shouldn't be concerned at all by the current FCC Chairman's plan to completely abolish all regulatory oversight of the Internet. In other words, fox claims hen house perfectly safe under his supervision.
As to Michael Powell clairvoyance, remember when he claimed there would be more choice once the 1996 Telecommunication act line sharing provisions were repealed? [arstechnica.com] That cert
I blame the corporate cloud. (Score:2)
The service providers (Verizon, ATT, L3,etc) pushed for this because now they have a massively captive corporate office who have been sold on the false song of cloud based workflows.
Once this vote goes through, we may see a massive halt in cloud adoptions as businesses have to reconsider the costs associated with transmission fees.
Strawman once again (Score:2)
Look moron, no one is saying the Internet will self implode, stop existing altogether, or be completely subverted the moment Net Neutrality passes. This bullshit that Pai and gang is trying to pass as truth is not what is at stake here, and anyone trying to pass this impression is apparently lacking the nuance of the message.
It's obvious, given how shrewd ISPs are, that the changes for the worse will get implemented slowly - as they were before.
Remember people, the Internet didn't start out right away with
LOBBYIST for the Telecom Industry (Score:2)
Uhhh...no (Score:2)
Y2K and a pile of bullshit (Score:2)
Y2K didn't become a disaster because the problem was recognized and a shitload of work happened to verify that it wasn't a problem, and where it would be a problem, mitigation strategies, software patches and other work happened. I don't know where this guy was or if he's got a shitty memory, but we certainly devoted a pile of time and resources to it, both for our internal systems (applying patches to all systems, checking/updating critical software) as well as the software we ship.
I'm also all for ratio
Doesn't sound like an "open Internet" to me! (Score:4, Insightful)
The vibrant and open internet that Americans cherish isn't going anywhere. In the days, weeks and years following this vote, Americans will be merrily shopping online for the holidays, posting pictures on Instagram, vigorously voicing political views on Facebook and asking Alexa the score of the game.
That sounds closest to the nightmare scenario we're trying to avoid, where users are (even more) locked into only the most popular commercial services from Silicon Valley megacorps, who will be the most capable of paying for the "fast lanes" (most likely in the form of zero-rating).
Startups and small business will continue to hatch and flourish,
Hatch and die in the nest is more like it...they won't be able to afford "fast lanes" to compete with the most established players.
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And disregarding all of that, non-commercial use of the Internet without servers in data centers is important too. If I want to interconnect with family and friends, I should be able to do so without a trusted commercial server out in the ether.
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That is how it has worked for a long time - some people have basement servers, especially small startups and hobbyists. Those are the seeds for the future, and if the seeds and experiments are weeded out before they have the chance to grow then the economy will become stagnant.
A lot of experiments fails, but a few starts to grow and that's not different from how a forest grows - a lot of seeds fall to the ground, a few germinates and if a large tree falls then one or two of the ones that has germinated will
Carrier-grade NAT and server bans (Score:2)
That is how it has worked for a long time - some people have basement servers, especially small startups and hobbyists.
Only for those hobbyists who can afford the upgrade from home Internet, whose acceptable use policy bans even light-traffic servers and/or which is behind carrier-grade NAT in many countries, to business Internet, which allows servers and offers a static IPv4 address. (ISPs in some countries skip the intermediate "dynamic but mostly stable IP address" state that US ISP Xfinity by Comcast is known for.) Customers behind carrier-grade NAT can run a basement server, but it'll be accessible only through the cus
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whose acceptable use policy bans even light-traffic servers
This is called "The Internet." They do not enforce their acceptable use policy unless you're using a ton of bandwidth, because they know it.
Otherwise, it's just a content consumption service and repealing Net Neutrality is just fine.
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For one, because it's a better way of making money than a closed internet.
They forgot to add "so far..."
That could all end the day Netflix starts making deals with the ISPs.
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The sad part is that they do not understand that Net Neutrality works to make sure that the Internet is there for the new companies and services that have yet to be imagined.
I'm certain they understand that. They just don't care. And that is maddening, not sad.
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this is exactly what they are trying to stop.
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Yes it was, because we and the ISP really didn't know what lines to draw. Most ISP stayed open just because they didn't know what the legal standing would be if they tried to throttle a site. And for the most part sites they thought about throttling made some private deals before it hit the legal system.
Back before Net Neutrality I was afraid to say to my ISP who also offered phone service, that I was using a VOIP phone in fear that I would be on some watch list as troublesome customer.
Reversing Net Neutr
Re:Oh, noes! (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, I do. We had court rulings that permitted ISPs to block BitTorrent (see the results of Comcast v. FCC), ISPs extorting the companies I do business with to deliver the packets their customers had already paid their ISP to deliver to them (which then affects me, since the companies I do business with have to raise their rates to makes up the difference, which ends up impacting me), and ISPs interfering with SSL handshakes to prevent secure connections while simultaneously injecting advertising identifiers (i.e. supercookies) into all of their customer’s traffic.
Ah, the good old times, right? How quickly you forget.
The only good thing back then for me was that the local cable ISP hadn’t yet managed to consolidate their complete control of my region, so their prices were about 40% lower, but that’s a separate issue, sadly, and one that won’t be affected by these changes. Even so, if they decide to misbehave like other ISPs were in 2015, the only choice I’ll have for broadband this time around is “take it or leave it” with the local cable monopoly.
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Ummm... the "court order" that allowed throttling of BitTorrent was because some BitTorrent users were consuming massive amounts of bandwidth, and Comcast (rightly) argued that they had to manage their network for the 90%+ of users who weren't abusing the system. In 2008 (seven years before the Net Neutrality regulations), they had already come to a compromise with BitTorrent on that. All of the other concerns people bring up were dealt with in 2010, when the transparency rules were in place.
All of the othe
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We had court rulings that permitted ISPs to block BitTorrent (see the results of Comcast v. FCC)
Of course, Comcast had already stopped blocking BitTorrent [arstechnica.com] about two years before that ruling [washingtonpost.com], due at least in part to a class-action lawsuit [wired.com] filed in the same general timeframe as the FCC investigation. And who knows what the FTC would have done had Comcast not folded.
It would be awesome if people would open their eyes a bit to the overall system of checks and balances we have in this country and not just declare the only two options to be a state-controlled Internet or the wild wild west.
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I'm guessing you're responding broadly to points like mine, rather than to mine specifically, since you're responding to things that I didn't actually say. Even so, those are good points, even if they aren't exactly in response to the things I said.
For instance, I cited the court ruling, not the behavior itself. The problem isn't the particular instance of bad behavior Comcast was engaging in, since as you pointed out, it was resolved years earlier. The problem is the precedent it created. When the Bush-era
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You clearly follow this stuff pretty closely. I've frankly not run into many people on the other side of the NN debate that seem to want to do much beyond swilling beer and extolling the virtues of "freedom" through increased governmental regulation. Though I suspect ultimately we're not going to see eye to eye on everything, I appreciate you taking the time to discuss. A couple of thoughts/questions:
Following Comcast's bad behavior in 2008, the 2010 ruling stated that the FCC was incorrect in its legal analysis and that they lacked the authority to enforce neutrality with the current rules they had in place, essentially opening a massive hole in policy that was never intended by any administration.
Congress has had seven years, under two different administrations and under control of both parties (four
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Though I suspect ultimately we're not going to see eye to eye on everything, I appreciate you taking the time to discuss.
Likewise! I always appreciate thoughtful responses, even if I may disagree with them. Also, I'll apologize in advance for my lack of brevity.
Congress has had seven years, under two different administrations and under control of both parties (four of those years prior to Wheeler's NN rules), to legislatively change that. They didn't. IMO that facially makes "never intended" a bit thin. Do you have more specifics on why they took no action on this if it was so blazingly contrary to what they wanted?
It's a few different things, the first of which is that people simply didn't see the need to legislate it. As I mentioned, everyone (including the FCC) seemed to think that the FCC already had the authority back when Bush deregulated ISPs, so there wasn't any perceived reason whatsoever to legislate the issue prior to the 2010 ruling. And even after that ruling, the FC
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I feel like downloading it so we can reupload it in a few months. There's a meme in the making, I can feel it.
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Technically, the Internet was created for the military (DARPA), who have deep pockets. It was only later that it expanded from the military and the Universities that helped develop the protocols to public use. Not defending the FCC decision by any means, but that's the why of it's creation.
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